I.
Upon entering the city, I stumble upon the pre-official pride. Protest, rally, I don’t know. Monuments have been scaled. A few cops mill. A lot of glitter, a lot of nipples, a lot of pencilled moustaches.
A drum circle draws a crowd. The tempo rises and rises until the dancers shake into stillness and everything breaks. Defy pain. As just now, thunder came, rain began, and now air prances.
Sleep lilts over rooftops, cacophony of beam and brick, slate and stucco. A night to set anchor to ankles.
Catch rain on your tongue through the open window. Squat inside skin, indignant purchase, sparse sanctuary.
II.
At the bakery down the street, source of the summer’s best apricot tart – juicy, silken, nested on a wisp of crème anglais atop a paper-thin sheet of crisp, buttery pastry – the person behind the counter stops, having used several times the address ‘madame’, and cheerfully inquires, ‘Êtes vous madame?’ I shrug. ‘Madame? Monsieur? Je n’sais pas.’
Their smile reignites. A package arrives. Their call resounds into the depths of the bakery. We turn once more, eyes to meet and part. Through the breeze-flooded door. Ill-mannered, I tuck in, shedding crumbs along the street.
III.
Wind-dazed tree catapults into itself. Rippling back muscles beneath the taut white shirt of a rower. Further along the wall, light limns the back of a goose. Hadn’t seen that Monet before. The sun casts golden on tips and ramparts.
The theatre, a gouge of lightless basement, is forgetful of time. Outside, an old guy busks. ‘Pretty woman, walking down that street.’ Skirts swirl, the dance a flurry of laughter. He glows. My eyes pirouette, landing on the floofy backside of a pomeranian, mid-shit, the trajectory accurate, rehearsed.
Up: tourist shop, window jammed with hoodies calling you’ve been somewhere. Once in that building, there was an internet café. As I remember it, I’d gone in to get a boarding pass for elsewhere.
IV.
Welter of castles, of sooty turrets, marshmallow casements. At any minute I might be dragged into a dungeon, tortured by inventive means, and escape only by exercise of some maimed magic.
Something trebles, squirrels rootling nuts. Sliced rage of pattern and pigment in a beet. Haze cups streets along which eyes yearn.
V.
I fall asleep, windows wide to the splash and rumble of the street. Pull the curtain over to half prevent the light, and curl – exposed, cocooned – into the generous arms of the indifferent city. Sleep as well as that night on the sailboat, nestled in a gentle stretch between island and shore, rain drumming incessant circles.
Shelly Harder lives and writes in Oxford, UK. Their work includes zero dawn (above/ground press 2021), intimology (Frog Hollow Press 2020), and remnants (Baseline Press 2018).