MONOLOGUE II

I can still see that picture of her in my mind.

Still there. Burned in like too much sun. Where were we that day? The woods? What...year? It was warm. Under a thicket of limbs and leaves. No wind. Not a sound. Just a pathway. Just...us.

I don’t remember our conversation. Must have been some story or other we were spinning. There’s always something moving the moment forward. But...for the life of me...I can’t remember what it was that day. I just remember the way the sunlight flashed her chin. Breaking past the canopy.

Photosynthesis of the face. Her face. My eyes locked. Memory collected and stored. Now, rarely retrieved. But still...there.

It always comes back to me in the woods. Something about the scent of softening timber felled by storm. Something about it...brings the picture back. And the leaf. Flittering about her neck.