Another variation on this theme.

There is this woman. She has been waiting in this spot, she thinks, on this ribbon of ground, beside this sweep of water, for longer than she can recall. The sun passes. Her shadow shifts. If she leaves now, refuses to look back, she might be lost for good. She remembers her breathlessness on the tram, coming down to this place, the way her body swayed with the bodies beside her, the bodies she disregarded because of the one waiting for her at that spot, on that ribbon of ground, beside that sweep of water. Now the only body here is hers. Her heart is pounding still. She begins to plan. She needs no god, no myth for this one: she can feel herself changing already, can feel the white veil piled and pinned atop her favorite hat feathering to a plume, can feel what is massing at her shoulders and down her spine, there where her back is strongest from all the living she's done so well these many years. She will become what no one has imagined. She will leave behind this open road, this killing rail, the cold suggestions of this empty boat, these wintersick trees and abandoned shelters. She will transfix. She tips back her head, seeks an image of her longing there in the open sky. She can feel her throat opening, her breast swelling for this swift new song she is coming to be. When she arrives, she thinks, another who has wanted will be waiting. There, her singing will unfurl faster than her finest hope. She dances a quickstep in her leaving, loving the turn of the waltz in her flight.

source for tonight's image: The George Eastman House.