unpressed

She reached for all the wrong things when she had a choice. Especially men, the ache, she grimaced. She was over-dressed for the task in her unpressed apricot dress. The deception of pink heather swimming in the pasture unto swarms of purple clover masked the peaceful valley. There were the bees. Grasping for blossoms of dew to overflow her wicker they swarmed in single file, and she fell from the rotted gray splinter of a ladder into his arms. She was laughing as they ran, spilling the basket of perfumed pedals amongst all that buzzing.
On the wooden plank bridge her great-grandfather's slaves had built they stopped. They stood on aged wood with initials scrawled underneath that only the dead could decipher. He kissed her as she was out of breath and pleading to return. She shoved him over the rail with all her heart, splashing the unrequited soul head first into the green water, and she ran off to retrieve her basket. He stood up, emptied his hat and sea-shell ears admiring the ripples he created, and he could see the calm water farther down the brook never to be disturbed just like his heart.

Young Woman Picking the Fruit of Knowledge, 1892
by Mary Cassatt