<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Persephone<\/strong><\/p>\n That day was the last time I saw him alive. To be honest, I didn\u2019t think he looked that good. His face was grey; the pockmarks seemed to be anchoring the skin in place. His eyes were like deserts.<\/p>\n It had been a slow morning \u2013 punctuated by coffees, camellias and misting leaves. Just before eleven I saw him standing there on the other side of the plate glass, sucking on his cigarette. He had his collar turned up. The wind was catching the smoke and sending it off as a warning.<\/p>\n He\u2019d looked thinner every time I\u2019d seen him lately – tall and hard, but so thin. His thinness seemed like a prediction. He may have lost bulk, but he\u2019d given up none of his presence and edge. He had that focused, prickly side. Straight to the point, no small talk. Brief. Who could blame him? I might be like that too in his position.<\/p>\n When he stepped in, he still filled the shop. That never changed. Whatever else they said about him, when he was there, he was there.<\/p>\n I knew what he was after. We\u2019d been waiting for weeks for it to come in \u2013 a rare specimen. They called it the organ pipe cactus, Stenocereus Thurberi, proud and tall and very spiky. I had it ready for him behind the counter.<\/p>\n So he stood in front of me, reeking of tobacco, legs apart, elbows slightly flexed, hands loose. He might just have stepped off his horse.<\/p>\n \u201cWell?\u201d he said.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s here,\u201d I said.<\/p>\n I reached to the shelf and lifted the pot onto the counter. At only nine inches tall, it didn\u2019t look much like an organ pipe, but to see his reaction I could have just put the crown jewels down in front of him.<\/p>\n The pink tip of his tongue snaked across his cracked bottom lip. He leaned forward towards the cactus, so close that the spikes on its crown almost kissed his nose. There was a twitch at the corner of his mouth that didn\u2019t quite give birth to a smile, but I knew he was pleased.<\/p>\n \u201cTook long enough,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n \u201cCame from Arizona,\u201d I said.<\/p>\n He nodded and with yellow fingers, he turned the pot, craning his neck, until he found a groove between parallel spikes where he placed the tip of left small finger. He angled the nail to the flesh of the plant and drew it down like he was caressing a lover\u2019s thigh. He lifted the finger to his nose and inhaled and then he wiped it on his tongue. His eyes shone like a dry sun.<\/p>\n I realised I\u2019d bent forward too, couched and expectant. The three of us were bound in that moment. I could feel his breath on my cheek.<\/p>\n I straightened up.<\/p>\n \u201cI take it she\u2019ll join the others?\u201d I asked. His head moved a fraction of an inch.<\/p>\n \u201cWhat will you call her?\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cPersephone,\u201d he said, \u201cThe last one.\u201d<\/p>\n <\/strong><\/p>\n <\/p>\n DJ Mac<\/strong> fouters with an itchy, scratchy pen in an Edinburgh garret in the odd moments when the bewilderment of life fades. A proud member of the Binge Inkers<\/a> writing group , he meanders, rants, muses and chortles on www.djmac.co.uk<\/a> . He likes to look for humour in the darkness in order to craft good writing. Observers hope that some day, with the wind behind him, he may still yet succeed.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Persephone That day was the last time I saw him alive. To be honest, I didn\u2019t think he looked that good. His face was grey; the pockmarks seemed to be anchoring the skin in place. His eyes were like deserts. It had been a slow morning \u2013 punctuated by coffees, camellias and […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4932","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-prose-poetry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4932","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4932"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4932\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4933,"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4932\/revisions\/4933"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4932"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4932"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4932"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}