—
These gifts then, that I have sent? You don’t need them, of course. They are for the rest of us, to see what you make of them. For me. For us.
—
Ovid
I remember him on a night like this but warmer, the moon shimmying down the black lake. He drinks and wanders from room to room. The blanket is on the floor, breathing softly. Men in exile owe so many letters. Now he is weeping – improbable. Every night around this time I put on desire like an old coat. I wonder from room to room.
Reader I have lately felt inadequate to the task of writing you.
I am including this very average photo of my breakfast — a cinnamon-laced latte and a ham and cheese croissant, snapped on a phone — because I have all but retired my ‘real’ camera and my ‘real’ photography in favor of this mostly artless, haphazard snapping which, for reasons requiring no elaboration, bugs old souls when they witness it. And I’ve retired a lot more of myself that I believed real, that I believed made me real.
