She laid them out in front of her.
Photos of the faces of the men she had
slept with.
Sometimes, she just needed perspective.
Whenever she felt like she wasn’t achieving
anything she’d take out the photos and spread them out on the dining room
table, or sometimes on her bedroom floor. She had only once taken them into her
studio – but that was dangerous. They interfered with her work.
With a cup of peppermint tea beside her,
she laid them out in front her.
Her finger would trace the details she had enjoyed
the most about each different man; his nose; his crooked chin; his cardigan;
his glasses he’d left on the side table; his broad shouldered shirts she’d worn
to make breakfast; his six o’clock shadow that had left her reddened and worn
the next day; his smile.
Some, she would linger on, as her memory
flipped through its files in search of a name. Her finger would tap lightly on
his cheek as she thought.
She would always get there in the end with
a small sigh of recognition. And when she did remember, she would say his name
out loud in breathy voice laced with relief, his name whispered with fondness (usually)
and a nostalgia would then curl its way onto her lips, folding them into a
wistful smile. They were remembered.
Then she would place the photographs one on
top of another, in no particular order. And return them to the bottom draw
where they were stored. Then she would leave her dining room, or her bedroom
and return to her studio. She would approach her worktable, look, pause then
remember what she was doing and where she was up to and continue to work.
