among the torn silks of phrase

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.
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