May, and,

Summer waxes its way into the land,

Weaseling in between the days of cool spring rains. 

Ainsley’s white picket fence is smothered,

By the trailing wisteria,

Once again.

Sunday mourning,

The sun filters its way through

Ainsley’s linen-lace curtains,

Searchlights over her bedsheets.

But she is already awake.

And the beams grasp at nothing at all.

Over in the car park,

Castor and Pollux,

Two loyal rottweilers,

Chase each other in giddy play.  

Happy for a dry day,

Among May’s indecision. 

Barefoot and still in night clothes,

Ainsley steps onto her front porch,

She raises her face to the bright of the day.

But all she can feel is the cling of cool,

That spring has not yet shaken. 

The porch swing sways slightly.

Two bluebirds flit around the almost empty bird feeder.

Names unknown, at least by her.

The earthworms wake up, twisting around each other 

Plowing their way through the dirt.

Everything is making sound in all wake,

And Ainsley can hear it all,

Every last creak and whistle and gasp,

Of things blinking their way back to life.

She wishes she could hear her own heart beating,

Or her breath,

To make noise beside it all,

But she can’t- and she’s silent amongst all cacophony.

Her toes are so cold in the soft morning,

That she wonders if winter hasn’t fully left her.

And instead sunk and settled around her ankles.

She steps back inside, 

But is still unable to shake the shivers.

Down by the lake,

A couple of early risers,

Joanie and David,

Share a silence on the docks.

Gazing out at the empty lake. 

Ainsley puts on a record,

But the house is so empty,

That the sound verberates 

In a rattled fashion.

She sits by the window with a book, but she isn’t reading.

As morning swells to midday,

She watches as Celia and her dog linger at the intersection,

Waiting for Jesse and his mutt.

Inconspicuously, the pairs time their walks in sync.

Ainsley suspects they are in some kind of love.

Both owners and canines alike. 

The way their faces light up.

Today, Ainsley feels Lonely.

Ainsley is always alone,

But doesn’t often feel Lonely. 

But Loneliness is an inevitable consequence of being alone.

So maybe she should have foreseen this.

Everything walks in pairs,

And she finds it entirely beautiful.

A twelve year old artist staring at Klimt’s expanse. 

Always the observer, too afraid to use yellow paint. 

So she sticks to blue.

Her own work always unfinished.

Oh Ainsley, 

Do you dread that plot of land out back,

That you’ve marked with your name? 

Don’t you just feel like a child playing dress up again,

Not big enough to fill your mother’s shoes?

And oh Ainsley,

You’re happy, aren’t you?

Submerged in the creek,

And everything gives to you.

Ainsley, won’t you ever open the locket?

You can’t keep her in there forever.

Or are you worried the photograph has since crumbled.

And you won’t recognize her face?

Ainsley, her linen curtains thinning under sun.

Her house, so indomitably empty, beautiful and quiet.

Pristine. 

Ainsley, you never bleed.

Poor Ainsley,

Feet cold, pressed on the linoleum floor. 

She feels it all around her,

But not in her.

Not yet.