The Writer

 

 

She sat in the corner writing as if each word saved a life.  The winter morning sun, sharp splendor, demonstrated how it could conjure a wavy, liquid curtain of shimmering new pennies from mere strands of brown-red hair that when she suddenly tucked a recalcitrant lock behind her ear, there, for a moment, a glimmering stream rerouted and in copper glory shone.

 

Her eyes: half cat eye marbles, rays shooting from obsidian pupils, fanning out subtle jades, snow cloud greys, and blue sprinkles shining. Pen looping, loopdelooping, on white paper, fast, intense, as if a certainty of momentous discovery yawned before her mind.  Rushing forward over the ledge of a sparkling waterfall of perfectly tossed, cascading words, mouth opened in concentration, she flew, flipped and sped like a determined salmon.

 

Wheeling around to my hoot of laughter as I entered the café, her quick-then–gone focus sighted on my face.  The red-gold splash on my retinas decided what I would bespangle with words today.  The copperhead writer slithered on down a breathless sentence with her molten pen.  That would be me soon, I thought.

 

 

Abbie Conant

Dec. 30, 2010

Taos , NM