I am most fortunate to have met someone so talented.

ethandesu:

sunken too far in to middle age too youngwhiskers long around the cheeks and chinimperfectly shaven from the necka hurried job in preparation for some now forgotten event the eyes are deep and waterylined at the edges and greasy where they should be freshtoo dark
she was loved, he remembers, by all and everyoneshe wore that love like a trinket in her hairit made her shine, but she held it in no real regardit was just another old thinglike the dancer who can spin and step so casuallybut with such graceit belies any real effort or concentrationit was given to her, and she took it
a hand holds unconsciously to a strand of beardthe rose of a gold ring and the chewed down nail of his thumba shirt cuff and a roll of collar in white broadclothgone the faintest buttermilkgone over, a white shirt no longer fresh
“take it in both hands” he had said“run rings around it, shake it in to submissionyour happiness - you must take it it wont wait all your life for youit will find a more handsome suitor”But what does youth know of any of this…
The shoulders of his suit a fine cloth, but conservativea joylessly austere suit that spoke of tradition and sobrietya suit to be buried in, perhapsnot a suit to be living in
He lived in a Breton jumperStripes the colour of sugar sacks and raw linenblue the colour of the sea in his dreamhis pockets were full of his own keepsakesthe collected memory of his lifethe family portraits of each yeara knife the shape of a woman’s legbrass and steel rubbed down to fine lustrea silver matchbox engraved with three lettersa morgan dollar in a canvas coin pouchhis trousers always frayed at the cuffand rolled like he had just been walking in the sea
A portrait of the artist on the eve of his life

(Source: ethandesu)