A zephyr caressed the rusting tin roofs,

A last breath of dust from crumbling chimneys,

A draft of shivers skimming across the crater

Where construction workers toiled in muddy boots.

It flurried along the cold granite pave,

Swirling skyward,

Searching for its target.

It found me there at my writing desk,

My back to the sky, groceries spilled at my feet.

I took a banana and held it as a gun,

Pointing at my temple,

Squeezing the trigger for the sudden chill of nothingness…

Willing it to come,

Wrapping my head in a wet bandanna of absurdity.

I pulled it tight to trap my thoughts but the zephyr escaped,

Swirling and roaring into a vortex,

Sucking the groceries from the floor.

The room peeled,

Tearing old plaster bandage from a seeping wound,

As I clung to my desk until a bitter gourd erupted in my mouth

Into which, my heart poured,

Purple,

Pulsing,

Expanding and convulsing

As I vomited into the tourbillon

Where it danced like a mad drunk,

Spraying blood from its severed ventricles into the blurring ellipsis,

Wrapping me in a swirling ribbon of crimson silk.

The text sucked from my screen,

Smacking my face like stinging winter rain,

And I caught her scent for one final time…

I savoured the rush of air until my lungs could hold no more,

Expunging with a cry,

As it all flew from the window buzzing in a fly.

There was nothing left.

Silence, emptiness—

The caress of a zephyr, in the sky.

© Mark Cashion 2014

The Caress recieved an Honourable Mention in the Free Verse category, of the 2015 Henry Lawson Verse and Short Story Awards.