to the woods

rabbi with a wide fur hat. long grey curls trailing down his neck, their lay on the wind mimicked by the lines of his long black coat and the swaying of white tassels around his knees. the building cut away, like a slice of cake taken from serving dish to plate. where is it now? petit tranche de bâtiment soulevé.



cracking my knuckles on belleville, an old man at the poste wants to play nice, everyone else wants to play mean. like a slice of thick meat, i slab my way down the pavement. at the jolie môme they are playing what sounds like the soundtrack to an old western. enormous bowls of coucous steam in the kitchen. it is otherwise empty, except for the sunshine on the vinyl boothes and dark wood chairs. the floor is dusty from the chalkboard next to the bar. a stack of books looks ready to fall onto a neighboring table. in the kitchen, the cook never speaks, does not even look up when i enter, mysteriously muted sounds escape his smoky realm. here, it seems quiet, and stray blossoms from the trees in the square hang impossibly between the pavement and the sky before another near dead current lifts them further, lilting and silent notes of a mute afternoon aria

at home, the hall light lies in a thousand pieces on the floor. it seems to have detached itself from the ceiling. one of the less subtle results of leaving the nest too early.

to the woods, where it's safer. where the city cannot lick its flames down my arms and legs. where the ground looks soft and the cracking of branches is not my own. where the weight of rocks hold the earth down, where the weight of ourselves lifts and layers. if you move too far in one life, do you eventually belong nowhere