12th March 2017

Dawn had come and gone, so it was almost a midday sun that dragged me from a still-drunk slumber. The light, the way it shone through the shutters, made me think we could be anywhere. So when the windows were cracked open and street sounds reached us, I thought of Dar Es Salaam, Rome, busy roads and car horns. On a similar morning, children’s voices rose up, hearkening back to distant summer pleasures.

“se réveiller ailleurs…”

While the outside shape-shifts, inside, a cascade of words and impressions tumble through my mind, whether flashbacks or intense awareness for the present, I can’t be sure. Lithe, luxurious, tangle of limbs, echoes of Countee Cullen’s “Tableau”, all the books and films, ever. Forms of synchronicity and promises of empires to come.