a cabinet of curiosities

listen: changing of the seasons, ane brun
mood: without seeking

introspective, prospective, retrospective, -
i become forgivable like plum-coloured leaves, shadows wet with rain & collapsing sightless, like sighs into pavement. this comes hand-in-hand with a relentless feeling of never enough, with a city built for our longings.

this place, this season, is the loveliest.

i.

tarot de marseille, emmanuel polanco


ii.

below it, peter broderick

iii.

For a fraction of a second, Doubt, that strolling player in my life, stares down from the ceiling, a flicker of menace. I give it a complicit wink, then wonder if this is the same shadow that foreclosed on Mary Swann. But no, the steady unalarming breathing beside me convinces me otherwise. Strange how the whole of this man's body seems to breath, as though equipped with gills. Reprise, reprise; that lovely word mixes with the shadows. A number of thoughts come toward me at full sail, an armada of the night, blown by happiness.

A week ago, Morton Jimroy wrote a letter in which he said: "We live in a confessional age." But he's wrong. This is a secretive age. Our secrets are our weapons. Think of South Africa, those clandestine meetings. Think of the covertness of families. Think of love. How else can we express mutiny but by the burial of our unspoken thoughts. "I love you," says Stephen with his uncomplicated breath. "I love you too," say I, biting into silence as though it were a morsel of blowfish and keeping my fingers crossed.

-Carol Shields, Swann

iv.
:: object not found ::

* * *

i was waiting above the train-tracks, leaning against the rimy seashell bridge. it wasn't anything specific - simply a pause, just a moment of discontinuity. & the woodsmoke moon on undersided october leaves, a sensation of empty distance, of side-stepping parallels. i was thinking of the word 'audacity,' the imaginary crickets, & a feathery tabby had wrapped itself around my ankles. (i have become the girl who is curiously, consistently followed by cats.) a book of new stories in my bag, the sounds of fall music & no mittens. down by the northwest arm, the water is all stillness & barnacles. are you ever made from papier-mache wings? i was other places & i didn't notice.

"are you okay?" asks the woman, leaning out from the darkened passenger seat.
she looks at me with concern. she is wary, full with the caution that small creatures will move suddenly & against your expectation. the man beside her has one hand on the steering wheel. he is already reaching for his phone.
i smile and say "yes," but it's the absurdity of the moment, mixed with the sudden feeling that offered proof is impossible.

when i woke up this morning, i made coffee & counted the polka-dot-tar-spot turning leaves of the backyard maple. i was still thinking about the strange distances of concrete.

in an abandoned firehouse with you

song: telethon, emily haines & the soft skeleton
supper: pumpkin pasta

the season resounding, surrendering, crisp with the drenched & reddening trees. in this backtrack, falling down desolate desolate place (to dissolve, of late -) we navigate abscessed nails & shards of the short-lived windows. bricks flying through the glass, a crowbar tears at wooden slats. shadows turn to silhouette & we walk here like echoes. there are envelopes beneath the open floorboards. memories of wallpaper. we are homeward highway & orchard apples. all the sunlight of the day.

these are the colours of autumn: alazarin,
bistre, sangria, scarlet, amaranth, umber,
sepia, tenne, cordovan, burgundy; russet.

bricollage

music: blue sands, colleen
mood: calico-minded

for m.

a theory of optics: we are seeing as how,
we are becoming seen.
& this raspberry smell of the rose-gardens
(& tonight, the moon is a smile).