Oh hello Everyone is sitting, on the couch, on arm rests, on laps, on cushions, on the floor, frieze like, someone changes her weight from her left to her right, as if to stand, but then, noticing the change that brings to the room, the room that is poised sitting, planted, gasping at conversation that could be choked by an ending to the delicate contorted sitting in the room, moves her head to her partner’s knee. She keeps sitting, like the rest of us, our bodies forming together like musical notes on a score, climbing and falling. All we talk about are plans. Eddie is saying she wants to move to the sea to build her clam empire. She draws the logo on a piece of paper with a crayon. She says she misses her hands, forgets what they can do, and needs the sea and the act of gathering from it, to remind her of their grip. Tom is quitting, he has the email drafted, look, he says, Dear Joe, it begins, Tom has a Volvo he wants to drive to Normandy. From there, he says he has options because of his Volvo, endless options with a boot space like that. I tell them about my plans for a bar, plans they’ve heard before, and will hear again but grander, a lacquered blue floor, a copper raised bar, stools that are bolted to the floor, martinis where the shaker is left at the table for topping up, a curtain that drawers in the evening across the front door, and—I say this with my arm cramping and all feeling lost in my crossed legs—in that bar: infinite possibility.
Savage Theories and Willow Springs
Savage Theories and Willow Springs
Savage Theories and Willow Springs
Oh hello Everyone is sitting, on the couch, on arm rests, on laps, on cushions, on the floor, frieze like, someone changes her weight from her left to her right, as if to stand, but then, noticing the change that brings to the room, the room that is poised sitting, planted, gasping at conversation that could be choked by an ending to the delicate contorted sitting in the room, moves her head to her partner’s knee. She keeps sitting, like the rest of us, our bodies forming together like musical notes on a score, climbing and falling. All we talk about are plans. Eddie is saying she wants to move to the sea to build her clam empire. She draws the logo on a piece of paper with a crayon. She says she misses her hands, forgets what they can do, and needs the sea and the act of gathering from it, to remind her of their grip. Tom is quitting, he has the email drafted, look, he says, Dear Joe, it begins, Tom has a Volvo he wants to drive to Normandy. From there, he says he has options because of his Volvo, endless options with a boot space like that. I tell them about my plans for a bar, plans they’ve heard before, and will hear again but grander, a lacquered blue floor, a copper raised bar, stools that are bolted to the floor, martinis where the shaker is left at the table for topping up, a curtain that drawers in the evening across the front door, and—I say this with my arm cramping and all feeling lost in my crossed legs—in that bar: infinite possibility.