Sleep Artist (Bishop from F1 to C4)

We started in the middle of things, the pale belly of the matter, and despite the art I don't know where it will end. Our feet and heads are often at odds. I think of this now while Anna sleeps in the loft, her red hair shocking in the moonlight, the curtain in breeze. Something of it reminds me of the painting I bought unfinished from a street artist in Florence – light blue sketch-lines ghost down from bright watercolor into open white paper, and a golden basilica and deep sky arch like a prayer above a lonely street – motion, space, the possibility of completion. But not tonight. Tonight something resisted all painting.

I climb quietly down the ladder to my study where the canvas stands as I left it, a dark emptiness in the night surrounded by tubes of titanium white and scarlet, my brushes lined up neatly and waiting.

Her face, her face and tapered neck and her coils of auburn hair! I only saw her for a moment, when I left the company's office and passed her in the waiting room. They want it finished, and on time. They will pay me only then. I suppose if you commission art you can be as secretive and rigid as you want. And I'm so hard up I’ll take any commission, even one I don't understand. Was that a camera bag under that envelope?

On the way to the kitchen I pause in front of the framed Italian painting. I can barely see my reflection. My fingers leave vertical marks on the glass, and I remember her legs, two swift lines of bare skin in the shape of a tall letter x, a red patterned dress pulled tight above her knee. Lips to match the dress, but glossier. A hand at rest. A ring?

I need a beer.

It’s hard to eat when you haven't had a sale in months. The beer goes right to my head and I know I won’t get any work done tonight. Sometimes a cigarette will do the trick, but not this time. I light another one and sit in the dim light of the kitchen, while the clock on the oven cycles through the blue hours, and the orange tip of the smoke darts periodically towards the ashtray like a small fish.

Then the bed-springs groan and I hear soft feet on the wood floor, and I know Anna is coming down. The ladder creaks. She’s wearing one of my favorite old button-ups, the light blue one flecked with paint. Her Irish legs glow as she pads up and wraps her long arms around my shoulders. Her breath is heavy with sleep when she kisses me, and her arms are tinged a delicate blue, and yet though her touch has the weight of a prayer, my mind holds still to the other woman, and the kitchen feels suddenly cold.

Albatross (D7 to D6)

The meeting had not gone as planned. She'd been prepared to state her case and walk out the door, resignation tendered. But she had underestimated their resolve and the degree to which this project mattered to them. She knew that she didn't matter. Her talent and worth were relative only in terms of "the project."

Still, she was unprepared for the baldness of their negotiation. No flattery this round. No fawning acknowledgement of her reputation in the field. But for all it's bluntness there'd been no honesty either. Just a cold display of power. We own you. Until this assignment is complete, you belong to us.

Not quite. A mere power play would have infuriated her. And she would have called their bluff, even though she couldn't be sure it was a bluff. Instead she'd paused. Paused and pretended to let a slow burn settle in her, while she eyed each of them coolly. Interesting. In a curious way, they'd just made the project more intriguing. Okay, there's something else here -- under the surface. Or was that what they intended her to think? Had that been the morning's strategy: Flex a phony strong arm to indirectly inflate the importance of the assignment?

Perhaps. But she wagered not. The envelope sat on the desktop between them, exactly where she'd placed it upon entering. With one finger, she slid it back across the glass towards her, then lifted it and, in what could only be taken as a f-you gesture, held it up to them before tucking it with exaggerated care inside her camera bag.

Now, walking briskly along Market Street past the suits with cell phones, she hoisted the camera bag further up her shoulder, and let a small smile play at the corner of her mouth. It was possible her albatross was morphing into a golden goose.

The (Fraud) Who Came in From the Cold (E2 to E4)

I keep at it, the axe swinging in a silver arc against the steel sky, the wood splitting clean with the sound of ripping linen. Sweat slides down my brow, and my shoulders ache, and my breath steams. The snow is littered with splinters. The sun is a vast orange nebula behind the oak, the house, and the thin plume of smoke rising from the river-rock chimmney. Ravens crackle in the timber, and night creeps under the heavy boughs.

When it's done I stomp back up to the shed and stand beneath the awning. The pines are already black, the melt far away, but we'll be warm this evening. I turn inside.

Two rooms are all we need together, two rooms for living and for dying, a room for waking and a room for sleep. One window on the world, two burners on the stove, three shelves for food and a simple wooden bookcase. A big trunk with leather clasps to hold our few belongings. A small bed with quilts. A table, with candle, notebook, pens and camera. The only thing you shoot is wildlife photography, and I only shoot pictures of you.

Your pictures cover one wall.

While my boots dry and the tea steeps in its kettle, I open a volume of Gary Snyder and read to you: "When you ask for help it comes / but not in any way you'd expect." The fire pops and hisses, aromatic cedar filling the warm room. You're silent again, and it reminds me of mornings in Portland years ago, when we'd rise at dawn to sit outside the cafe and read together, the distances just a few feet of cool summmer air. An hour would pass as it does now, content with mere presence, two bodies in heat with waves rising between us, and all the possibilities of day and night ahead.

But you aren't here this winter. You never were.