His thoughts and his face
were both like the canvases
lining his studio walls.
blank, empty, void of the beauty
they were capable of holding.
Once.
They were destined for so much more.
He held a brush
for the first time in weeks.
He painted the curves
he was so used to painting.
His hands were more graced
than those of any artist
in that
they were trained, accustomed
to painting her image.
He could paint perfection.
Just as he remembered it...
He finished within a week,
and there she was,
standing alone on a beach.
She stared out into an orange sunset,
over glittering calm waters.
She always wanted to see the ocean...
He tried to sleep
but trying was all he could manage.
His mind tortured him,
pulling forth only memories of her.
Of them together
and inevitably
of her death.
He would never forget
a single moment within that week
in the hospital with her.
Holding her hand, sleeping at her side.
His soul escaped him that day,
as her last breath escaped her.
He awoke to stare at his ceiling
for longer than was necessary
to shed his grogginess.
Today he would paint
his last portrait.
He began his masterpiece at noon,
and collapsed back into a chair, exhausted,
The second time he saw the moon
through his studio window.
Had the moon in his painting been in frame,
it would have been more luminous, more ideal.
She looked so beautiful in moonlight.
Waves gently massaged the sand of a beach
at the base of the portrait.
A trail of light from the moon was leading to them;
in the sand, sitting down.
His arm was around her, her head on his shoulder
Tall grass behind them blew to the sides,
nearly flowing within the image.
And above them, stars...
As never seen by anyone in our time.
No light but the moon and the stars
existed in the world within this frame.
He had painted his masterpiece.
It held both her dream
and his.
Within that portrait,
on those sandy, moonlit shores,
they would be together forever.
The steel felt strange in his hand.
He was so accustomed
to holding only brushes
and her.
A lifetime was too long.
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