Her face

How I wish, how I wish you were here
                                              ------- Pink Floyd
 
Lately my mind don't feel like mine.

There is a photograph in my shirt pocket that I don't recognize. I have taken it out and looked at it many times through the evening but I cannot recall who she is. It is a black and white photograph, not faded though it is a bit tattered. Whoever she is, her smile is radiant and her eyes open and inviting. Just as for the camera, it is hard for me to focus on anything but her face. 

When I have seen the face for long enough that I can reproduce it in my mind, I go out across the beach to stand at the water's edge. It is night and in the cold of the rain the water is indigo dark with the churn of the quiet waves an ominous frothy charcoal blue. There is a shadow on the murky horizon despite the ascendant moon.

I have been in this night before. I have been.

I pat my shirt pocket and the photograph is still there.

With my feet on the liquid sand, there is nothing to hold on to. So I close my eyes, imagine her face and let the cold steel rain wash over me.