among the torn silks of phrase

music: providence, the love language
mood: plum wine

"twenty-one? look much younger," he says.
i shrug & the fur brim of my hat falls into my eyes. i haven't taken it off for days. in the bathroom, under the sheepskin tiles & the whirring of a fan, i see how the reflection has become very wise & out of place.

dizzie gillespie was playing that afternoon, that afternoon in the alleyway behind rows of orchid merchants and right in the tickytacky heart of chinatown. i was looking at the four o'clock arabesque of a stranger's watch and the dusty sunlight bleeding into dusk. the restaurant deserted, with all the straightbacked mahogany chairs pushed against the brocade tables, watercolours curling like scrolls in their long frames. there were empty mirrors made of all the dollar-store porcelain.

i'm not sure what i've come for in this brief city, so i busy myself with collecting the geometry of footsteps and the noise. a japanese man sits at a table across from me, his nose hidden in the golden gate guidebook and his order is identical to mine (the rich taste of the wine, and a neat row of handmade dumplings lined up across the plate). and as i lift my glass, i feel the sky becoming dark over my shoulder. the owner's wife comes in with fuschia-coloured orchids all wrapped up in cones of newsprint. she leaves the winter door open.