The Perfect Palette

They walk in the park, side by side. The air between them is tangibly tense. They must not touch, nor look at each other. Just walk. And talk, a little.

She wears men’s plaid trousers. They are grey. The belt that holds it up is high in her waist. Her shoes look like those of a tap-dancer’s. Her tank top is tie-died in army greens and browns. Her hair is brown. She wears it in a loose braid, as feminine as the dark purple straps of the bra she is wearing.

He wears a brown shirt, longs sleeves, long trousers. He holds a dark blue rain coat. It seems casual but his knuckles are white.

Despite the distance between them, they move forward in a bubble which keeps them together in their palette of greys and browns and oker and blackened purple.

A brown butterfly lands on his left shoulder just as he glances briefly at her. It flies away again, unnoticed. As if it came to give him a kiss.