We glide 'cross the waters and shipwreck in the sand
The afternoon's mail brought my contributor's copy of Not One of Us #80, containing my poem "Fair Exchange." It wraps up the numbers issue, showcasing the fiction and poetry of CL Hellisen, Francesca Forrest, Zhihua Wang, Rebekah Postupak, and more. Mine has to do with the debits and credits of the drowned; it may have been set off by a Phoenician papyrus and owes more to sea-rise. It was the first poem I wrote all this sleep-deprived summer. Pick up a copy, start counting.
Aptly for the nautical connection, it arrived just in time for International Talk Like a Pirate Day. I cannot prove any piracy in the history of my salt-green onion bottle, but it came from the late seventeenth century by way of a river's mouth in the Caribbean. It wasn't for sale the first time I saw it in the window of the China Sea Marine Trading Company in Portland, where my brother agreed with me that it looked like one of Bootstrap Bill's empties. Two weeks later the proprietors had reconsidered and at the end of a dawn o'clock round trip, it came home with me wrapped in a calyx of newspaper and a strawberry-pink plastic bag from J.C. Penney with a Gordon Bok CD thrown in. A greenwing macaw watched the transaction; her name was Singapore. The bottle worked its way directly into "The Salt House" (2007) and has reappeared since in "As the Tide Came Flowing In" (2022). I photographed it before heading out into the overcast which feels like a storm about to break and better soon.
The bottle currently resides in the glass-fronted cabinet in the dining room. If you tilt it, the silt lees of sand and shell swirl dryly inside.
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spatch took a picture of me before we set off on our respective walks.
The blue-painted top of this fire hydrant is weathering like a stranded saucer.
Up close it's like a Minoan fresco with bolts.
The leaves are not really turning except for the ivy, which is throwing itself enthusiastically into the equinox and the co-option of local communications.
A story by Robert Aickman hides among it.
The crosswalk on North Street is practicing papermaking.
I couldn't not photograph the spring.
A sawed-off parking sign wrapped in orange paper by some city department makes a good advance fall decoration.
The hibiscus had gone photonegative.
spatch encouraged me to post the semi-feral selfie.
Do not eat the tie-dye pokeweed.
I wish the vast majority of my e-mail right now were not spam from the Democratic Party. They are really not in danger of losing my vote, only my patience.
Aptly for the nautical connection, it arrived just in time for International Talk Like a Pirate Day. I cannot prove any piracy in the history of my salt-green onion bottle, but it came from the late seventeenth century by way of a river's mouth in the Caribbean. It wasn't for sale the first time I saw it in the window of the China Sea Marine Trading Company in Portland, where my brother agreed with me that it looked like one of Bootstrap Bill's empties. Two weeks later the proprietors had reconsidered and at the end of a dawn o'clock round trip, it came home with me wrapped in a calyx of newspaper and a strawberry-pink plastic bag from J.C. Penney with a Gordon Bok CD thrown in. A greenwing macaw watched the transaction; her name was Singapore. The bottle worked its way directly into "The Salt House" (2007) and has reappeared since in "As the Tide Came Flowing In" (2022). I photographed it before heading out into the overcast which feels like a storm about to break and better soon.
The bottle currently resides in the glass-fronted cabinet in the dining room. If you tilt it, the silt lees of sand and shell swirl dryly inside.
spatch took a picture of me before we set off on our respective walks.
The blue-painted top of this fire hydrant is weathering like a stranded saucer.
Up close it's like a Minoan fresco with bolts.
The leaves are not really turning except for the ivy, which is throwing itself enthusiastically into the equinox and the co-option of local communications.
A story by Robert Aickman hides among it.
The crosswalk on North Street is practicing papermaking.
I couldn't not photograph the spring.
A sawed-off parking sign wrapped in orange paper by some city department makes a good advance fall decoration.
The hibiscus had gone photonegative.
spatch encouraged me to post the semi-feral selfie.
Do not eat the tie-dye pokeweed.
I wish the vast majority of my e-mail right now were not spam from the Democratic Party. They are really not in danger of losing my vote, only my patience.