a lake of green ivy, leaves burgeoning like waves betraying the golden flash of autumn in their midst like koi fish in a dark pond. the girls watch the leaves drift down from the fingers of their trees from the picture window in the house where they lift tea cups to their mouths, the china clinking against their teeth. they're not waiting for anything, they don't expect him to come and they've forgotten even to look for his smile in the faces of passerby; they are satisfied to track the nimble movements of the leaves in the trembling ivy and of the sun, bowing slow as honey in the sky beyond.