I've been walking after midnight on my way home from drinking with a friend. I rose up unexpectedly from the comfort of my chair and walked out into the night. I met him at the cafe but we wound up high above King St playing records and sharing a longneck bought with the last loose change we had. He was ripping the filters off his cigarettes and showing me the evidence of something that should be an irrational continent-spanning love but he said it was only a couple of good songs and a photograph of a painting. I would have said write something new and post it south but he'll probably think of that on Thursday and stay up all night to catch the morning post. That will have, I hope, a transforming effect. I walked the back way home ducking under the railway line through Piss Alley. I don't think I've ever seen the streets so empty, nothing but one tourist at a bus stop in an electric-yellow dress and a small crowd mopping floors at Istanbul. I was photographing public garbage bins and private doorways.
It was somewhere between King and Wilson, on one of those big-tree streets that I stooped to snap a pelargonium stem. I carried it home and pushed it into the dirt with the other snapped and stolen plants struggling to grow roots where my arms and its arms have been. I will water the way to remember this night.
It was somewhere between King and Wilson, on one of those big-tree streets that I stooped to snap a pelargonium stem. I carried it home and pushed it into the dirt with the other snapped and stolen plants struggling to grow roots where my arms and its arms have been. I will water the way to remember this night.
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