Street lights bend and wrap themselves around her. Pavements fold up and smother her. She thinks of the earth as a single stone. She warns: We will be killed by our own. Birch trees in the shadow of half-finished tower blocks. She predicts floods. A burst pipeline will set fire to the sea.
The stupid will deny the plague. The old writer twists the strands of memory in her braided grey hair, reads her poems into the machine, slowly, softly. She settles into a rhythm of touch and sound. Wind rattles the windows of the white room, bringing rain after weeks of heat. She draws the black curtains.
Once I saw a white raven โ the poet leans close, closer to the machine. Once, yes, I did , she says. It was sacred, it was alone, it was fierce, it saw the river, the parallel lines of vines. It saw us. Not to me, you understand. I am just an empty chair. Her companion frowns, does not answer. Why is she asking me? Yes, I can see him considering all of this, before he says No.
With a fork, she pushes her seafood risotto around the plate, sibs her Chablis. She looks out to where wind ruffles the tips of the long grass, turns the leaves on the poplars. The poet answers her door, steps back to let me in. Front porch , she says. Brain cancer , she says, pointing to my old friend, sitting in a wicker chair. She leaves us to it. He reaches out a hand, sideways, without turning his body.
My mind , he says, is gathering witnesses, compiling evidence for me to defend myself on the day to come. Who took the photo? Who else was there? Neither of us can remember but there we are, and behind us a pregnant, dark-haired woman, hands folded over her bump, head turned to the side, a flowered smock over her long blue dress.
