Arpeggio
When I reach my cabin fifteen minutes later, a rust-colored deer is standing right in front of it as if waiting for me. When she sees that I see her, she runs into the woods. I resent her all month for appearing at such a clumsily symbolic moment, one that is unusable in writing, as if to taunt me, she doesn’t show herself again.
Sarah Manguso
Le Chantecleur or coq, au vin. Dipping my feet at the edge of the lake. Pascale tells me the hotel poisons the lake, pours liquid in. I’m indignant in orange lifejacket. Wet curls. We found no evidence.
I lose my contacts in the lake. The fish mumble. Wake from water blur faced and metal.
2.
To next fleur, chanson or chocolaterie. A cake my family ate in square portions, Cadix. The baker moves away and won’t teach the new owners how to make it. We adjust our palette. Settle for butterflies on chocolate crisp. Le Papillion.
Not simply some acres of snow.
3.
Lake swans, lake boats, only that’s not here that’s there. That’s a ride at some park. Here there are paddleboats. My feet get hit if I’m not paying attention. I pretend swans.
Lake swans, lake boats, only that’s not here that’s there. That’s a ride at some park. Here there are paddleboats. My feet get hit if I’m not paying attention. I pretend swans.
I have never been on a train.
4.
Late songs on the deck. Leaves, the yard spreads. A table of water.
Bare back to wood.
Archipelago
Late songs on the deck. Leaves, the yard spreads. A table of water.
Bare back to wood.
Archipelago
To speak with pleasure despite difficulties.
Valerie Coulton, open book
I lost my contours in the lake.
2.
These sentences I found, this deep dish apple pie. A single mass, a single water.
A blind post, cardinal points. There is no reassurance.
3.
The plateau, gleaning. Who never bade him, enter. A god of, breath. Red ochre.
4.
What season is the season. Salt, winter. Peppered into spring.
5.
Furnish, a property line, bleeds. A future swing.
The tea is weak; beige. Only the beginning.