#51

Tips of thumbs chipped from picking, raw, shining pink. A single gray hair, nestled among a nest of brown, like the first snowflake of winter, drifting and melting, cooling the ground for the next to stick. Fingers tapping, tapping, rubbered toes tapping, tapping, eyes shifting, glancing, mouths frowning, smirking. Pale bowed legs shooting out of a deep black skirt, ending in scuffed black shoes. Legs raked with shallow pale scars, frantic in direction, cumulative, accumulated and faded, a visible echo of not so distant anguish, of escape. Laughter.

Matt SweckerComment