The End Of Summer

Even under such a heavy sky as this, I can recall another time, another day, when you walked along these beaches beside me, days when you saw these places in the same way as I saw them. Now our eyes see different times when I step forward to point.

You no longer need the lucent shells, and hard bright pebbles I used to drop into your eager open palm, for you to hold up to the light of a warming sun. You do not want to hear my call for you to come and see; instead, you stare out to sea and complain how the salt winds redden your eyes. Your eyes constantly search the sea, merging into the distant horizon, looking for some other, far-off, place where you feel you’d rather be.

We did not expect our walks to end, not like this, here and now at the end of our long slow summer days. These days we walk, each wrapped inside our own coats.

Instead of my arm wrapped around you and your hand in the back pocket of my jeans, we walk heads down and apart watching our routine footsteps tracing a worn out route back to where we began.

Then, when we get back home, you sit dreaming by a dancing fire drinking instant soup from a chipped mug, while I – finally – have something to write.