Striking skin; bullets with eyes of dried blood. Clinging to smooth stone, fortress walls, sleeping in chunks of shade that creep; shadow icebergs. Tourists. Heat. Salty half-moons under armpits. Sandals scuffing ancient rock. Turkish cigarettes. Lovers hold humid hands. A deserted city. Long dead. Before Christ was born. Hated. Pounded onto wood with nails; left to bleed, a slaughtered calf. Cries unanswered. Reasons unprovided. A couple. Young. Nineteen. Seventeen. Him. Her. A relationship. Two months. Moods beyond control. Passion and fear. Suffering. Her Nikon slicing moments off time; a gently clicking scalpel. Memories for a book. An album. A cocktail-table mausoleum. Always fighting. Driving from Paris to Monte Carlo. Stopping for iced espresso in a town. A charming village. Staring in silence; a joint burial. He opens his guitar case. Metal strings hot under sun; branding fingers. Plays a new ballad. Sings softly. Children gather. He smiles, a barefoot saint. It’s about her. She tries not to hear.
