Pomeriggiosera

By Farha Guerrero

He said, pomeriggio / sera — afternoon / evening.

It was time outstretched,
an indeterminate hour when they would meet again —
time morphed and blurred under an oppressive summer heat.

Not even Einaudi’s Una Mattina could release the uneasiness felt that morning.
The anxious passage of time.
The waiting to see him again.
To imagine his blue eyes —
meet her green.

He said, the train station.

But when she arrived at the Stazione di Aosta, it was empty.
No trains.
No passengers.
No rumore.
Alone.

Sitting on a bench under the portico —
the veranda in front of the railway tracks —
she clutched her bag to her body.
Her legs moist now,
entwined tightly,
the way a woman’s legs hug one another.

Her makeup washed away.
Her perfume dissolved in the intolerable heat.

Her mind fixed on the memory of those blue eyes —
tender, inviting,
grazing her face softly.

Time lay trapped in that wide valley of the Alps.
A distant sun fracturing the mountain peaks and ridges,
merging, as it seemed,
pomeriggiosera together.

If only he would arrive,
to shelter her from that stifling afternoon/evening.
If only he would trace her footsteps back to that bench.

A ubiquitous feeling stirred no desire to move,
or inquire for the man she had just met.

She waited as one waits in stillness.

Longing — carrying time forward.
Yearning — moving time ahead.
Despair — disrupting the silence.

The peach alpenglow of the mountain valley signalled the end of that vague hour of their meeting,
as notte was colliding with sera.
Notte was nightfall approaching.

Hope waning,
notte dissolving it.

Those gentle hues of amber gone.
One last look at the alpine sunset settling into darkness.

The air heavy.
Final.
Obscure.

So it is with time.
That ends.
Sinks.
And steals.

Until — like a mirage,
the night train comes.

Then — movement.
The hum of a crowd.
Men and women drifting in.
Men and women drifting out.

Her gaze shifting,
— in the waiting and arriving crowd,
for those blue eyes
in a sea of hazel and brown.

THE END

Author Bio: Farha Guerrero is a multilingual emerging writer who divides her time between Whistler, BC and Aosta, Italy. Her short fiction has appeared in The Antigonish Review, Qwerty Magazine, and The Lupine Review. Her work has been longlisted for PRISM International’s Nonfiction Prize and shortlisted by Sand Journal in Berlin.

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