afternoon sun.

sitting in the kitchen of my tutoree's house i put down my picture of dorian gray, tired of his lauding over sibyl vane. on the small oval table tucked comfortably into this breakfast nook, sit a jar of chewable gummi vitamins, an empty wicker napkin holder, a jar of only about a handful of peanuts, and two mismatched salt and pepper shakers. on the far end of the table a parched square vase still holds the remnants of its former patrons, now withered and brown. dried leaves clinging to slender branches with the last bits of their might wobble helplessly as my writing shakes the table beneath. beside this dried-out vase, another glass, still half-filled with water and shaped like a blunted upturned spade, holds a forgotten boquet of orange and violet mums, their blossoms of papery petals drooping limply after having been baked in the sun for too long. at five in the evening, the sun still streams intensely through the windows next to me, casting a thin window-trim gridded shadow onto the orange tablecloth before me and still, baking the sagging mums.

at twilight, nature is not without loveliness, though perhaps its chief use is to illustrate quotations from the poets.
: wilde.