Dawn Bruce

Paramours

We wander through the park, not wanting to part but knowing this is the last meeting. Love and the office are a lethal mix.

Around the curve of a hedge I halt, bathed in a glaze of emerald glass

heat wave
willows green
the still lake

Suddenly ducks swoop down, ripple the lake, quack, flutter. Some waddle up the muddy shoreline, brown bodies all angles. A cloying smell of old bedraggled feathers and mould surrounds us.

I sigh, turn away…walk on alone.

Late that night as the heat of day subsides to a warm milkiness, I write the resignation letter.

a drift of cloud
across the moon...
first raindrops