a wren means chance, but a mourning-dove is luck

music: what me worry? st. vincent
mood: worsted wool

Dürer would have seen a reason for living
in a town like this, with eight stranded whales
to look at; with the sweet sea air coming into your house
on a fine day, from water etched
with waves as formal as the scales
on a fish.

-The Steeple-Jack, Marianne Moore

this week, i've worn right through the toes of two pairs of shoes; too much gamine-esque gamboling round town with my stockings bare on the concrete. normally, it's the heels that wear away first: this indicates reluctance, lingering too long, the delicate curses of over-nostalgia. (leather & nails & thread become lost in the gravel.) thursday night seeped into my feet & on friday, i bought new flats. continuing continuous, toes first, stepping forward.

n. & i sit on the backporch with a pot of lapsang souchong (for conan doyle, for a house faraway) & with our savory-cinnamoned aubergines. maple leaves on the doorsill, all across the city, sharp & ruddy & quiet with right now. we talk about how this year, this strange firstlast year, is for becoming pressed with memories.

i bought apples this morning (i've asked d. to bring some from the half-wild orchard when he comes to visit), and green-grey & cream alpaca for a knitting project. somehow, the skeins & i wound up in your room, untangling all our knots while you & i said things about time. things like, 'chronological, but seasonal,' and 'all the septembers that we have been.'