for Judy
Afterwards, I had no photograph of her.
But a picture, clipped from a magazine and bluetacked to the wall, recalls her profile.
She had no mole but my eye passes over the speck marring the picture. The dark blonde hair swept back towards the ear is cut short. She wore her hair long but habitually tucked strands behind her ear, showing just that swathe across the temple. The finely etched nose, high fleshed-out cheekbones and strong brow seem to reflect perfectly the image I seek.
The collar of the jacket, obscuring the line of the jaw, blurs - becomes the edge of my quilt wrapped, on a wintry afternoon, across her shoulders as she sits cross-legged on my bed. The mouth rests in a half smile; the cast of the eye reveals a pensive mood.
My eye scans down the blank wall beneath the picture, my mind completing the vision. I see broad shoulders outlined beneath the quilt. The quilt spreads, curves, folds. One foot protrudes from the folds, toenails neat and deep red. And white fingers tipped with long nails - immaculately buffed but unvarnished.
I inhale deeply and lean my back against the wall behind me. Close my eyes. Feel her fingernails run from behind my ear, down my neck, across my shoulder, along the inner surface of my arm, turning in the palm of my hand. She clasps my hand and draws me (never reluctantly) down to her. The quilt falls away from her body as she reclines.
I hear the rumble in the back of my throat as my back slides down the wall and I sit, quivering, on the floor. If I cannot reach out once more to touch her softness, I think that I will shatter.
© 1994 (Imagine that! Written in pen on paper, and not published to the web for years.)