The First Date

The end is in the beginning and this beginning is about the paintbrushes he bought instead of flowers, the ferry across to Granville Island, expanding time to avoid the shortening, and maybe, just maybe about how he never looked back when he walked away.

But for the first date, it was about the way he laughed and flirted with the woman who sold him canvas a half snort, my first favourite noise, watching him from across the store, smiling at the cashier wanting him to find me in the store again, smile that way.

The aisles of paints all waiting beneath their plastic berets, and he walking through with his hands, he knew them all before. I choose three and make him choose one: ultramarine. Look at me the way he looks with such air and ground and now I have the water to paint between the two.