Fingers of Fate

Lord only knows when I wrote this. In college some time...I am assuming in one of my creative writing classes, or else in Greek Lit. I always felt inspired after reading Cavafy, Seferi and Gatsos. This must be at least 6 or 7 years old. I'd like to revisit this and revise it soon. For now--the original.


Fingers of Fate
H. Sideris

"We'll go for a walk if you like."

Her skin, so fair, I felt I could read her every vein word for word...
Drizzled and twisted like a bracelet around her wrist.
If you had seen what she was wearing that night...
A dress that made me so dizzy;
Like a labyrinth, it
Wrapped her like a natural scent of lilac and chamomile.

"Why, do you want company?" she looked strangely in my eyes.

Her fingers, pianists fingers,
were covered with nicotine

like a glove

I wanted to hold them.


"What would we say?" she asked again quickly.

"We could go out for coffee, eat some pasta, smoke some cigarettes. Do you smoke?"

"What does a girls have to say to a boy? Don't you know that men and women were created so that they have absolutely nothing to say to each other. They speak only when they grow old and they can no longer make love." Her voice hardened as she said the last few words.

"We don't have to talk. Maybe I could hold your hand?" I asked, still stirred by the last comment.

"I can't," she sunk her head into her scarf wrapped around her shoulders and neck, "besides, I don't smoke either."

She turned and began to walk away. I didn't stop her, nor could I, with the watchful eyes above her.
I wanted to push fate out of the way, face down in the gutter
let her fall into my arms.
Instead I watched
Her stained hands dipped firmly into her pockets.
Her dress following close behind her,
curling around her knee
barely grazing the scar adorning her calf.