That Sunday I met Eileen at 2pm on a stone stairway littered with horse chestnut shells ; the gusting sky was layered thick in gray clouds. Seeing her there her eyes filled with curiosity her cheeks flushed waiting for me beside a somber receiving vault felt like a dream.
We wandered and it began to rain. In an iron-gated family plot leaves tumbled past and, pausing, I recited to Eileen the poem from the market again and then, taking her damp hands in mine, somehow kissed her.

Eventually we sheltered in the marbled eaves of an old imposing mausoleum and held each other as our clothed dampened, ours fingers intertwined and trembling.