The pubs are mostly closed by now, the Prinsengracht all but deserted; bicycles well locked or casually disposed of. Stolen this last night, tomorrow the police will take them, sell them off next month: recycling’s just another game. A February rain, so cold it feels like fireflies stinging: every breath and every word a comic [...]
Torn from the dark and delivered to reason, the child, dressed in blood, now is turned to the light and explodes into tears, and it howls. Torn from the dark, from the thorns of the stars, and the top of this hill I can suddenly see this vision of silk and soft flesh, made of [...]
First came the wind, carrying the smell of spices. The boy, still asleep, saw his grandmother, standing in the kitchen, while she bruised the roasted cardamom and other seeds in the mortar, adding olive oil, then thyme and rosemary, then garlic, more oil. Sometimes, at this stage, his grandmother would call him inside and watch [...]
A burning screen of summer sky: the evening set alight and touched with disappearing. The island clouds, blue-veined with purple hues, as irreplaceable as porcelain – a breath of marble floating, so at home against the rising shadows of a dying day. The stubborn threads of fading light now move the dust that’s grown on [...]
The early light, like milk-fed ice, slowly fills the room, where all my dreams still smell of you. My first smile and my hungry eyes now look for some bright shadow that the night has left behind: something – some reminder of your flesh. The winter morning curls itself around my bed and like some [...]
 God (but you are beautiful) I whisper, half afraid to breathe or close my eyes. So beautiful – so beautiful (and here with me) and I am old and I am hungry, lonely and not used to worlds of wonder. Come (she comes to me) now – and naked and I die a thousand [...]