more snow . . .

The weather had turned cold and everyone took on the weight of coats and sweaters. The landscape held less light becoming heavy with shadow. He looked at his watch. She was late. A light snow began to fall. The street a white robe with cuffed sidewalks. The edges of his table softening. His own jacket twinkling the last light of flakes silently winking out.

He ordered another cup of coffee and watched couples come and go in holiday pace, their gloved hands held. Store fronts were full of frost and sparkle. Everywhere, jewels of red and green inlaid on white. He looked at his watch again. Even the second hand seemed impatient. With a weak smile his coffee arrived. The waiter someplace else. As was she.

Children seemed as balls of wool against this cold, their rouged cheeks full of smile. School was out. Somewhere a church bell tolled and the lights on the corner turned from red to green. Cars passed, slowly, little faces peering out of fogged windows. Families, together. They all looked the same. Happy.

Still, nothing. She would wear blue. Or maybe silver. Standing out against the others. And too, she would be walking alone, her long hair bouncing on cloaked shoulders, glint eyes and a smile he needed more with each moment she did not appear. He knew in the ambient sound, he could not hear his watch ticking. What was fact and what was real, like the winter sky, seemed gray.

From inside the cafe, bread baked. He smelled it with each jingle of the small bells on the door, opened always by men. And as quickly, closing, hushing warm waves of aroma over him, muting laughter he could see. He thought of her arms, of how they laid over him, the warmth of her torso as it fit into his under their sheets. The scent of her perfume fading now with the night, still sweet. He looked again. Down the street and then to his watch. Nothing but movement. And he thought of her moving. Her lines of silver and black against starlight, so graceful, fluid where breath alone was heard, where eyes held and arms embraced against their flow. As around him families flowed. As before him sat her snow dusted chair. Empty.

She said she would come. He had the note. Worn now from reading, its creases like elephant hide. He saw joy in the loops of her pen. The blue ink seemed alive, vibrant. She had written love, the L swooping as if she were all curve, all grace and elegance, as if this note, as last night, would be the last. Down the street more families came. Arms and hands carrying bags as still it snows and still there was nothing of blue or silver, nothing coming his way, not this morning, not ever again.