August 7, 2010
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A view from the front porch
A short prose piece from this afternoon, written while watching the happy old married couple across the street.
Beauty
She studied him thoroughly with the care and exactitude of a scientist mulling over a case study. Her fascination with him had long confused her. Aesthetically speaking, he was not a beautiful man. The hair was far more gray than black and so closely cropped to his head that it was nearly shaved. His jaw and chin were soft and round. The smile, though large and vibrantly displayed, revealed snaggled teeth. The chest and arms were too broad and strong to be considered tender and the belly protruded beyond the belt line. His skin was deeply tanned and weathered from many summers tending the pools and gardens of the well-to-do.
It was the internal man that stripped her of normal restraint and propriety. His broad back did not bend beneath the weight of hard work and responsibility. His cornflower eyes danced with joie de vivre and effervesced with intelligence and wisdom. She knew every fiber of his body from his thickly muscled fingers to his experienced brown hips; from his scarred knees and fallen arches. When others looked at him, they saw a laborer past his prime. But she, who knew him best of all, loved him in his gray sweatpants, ripped golf shirt, stained sneakers…so perfect.
