Carrying the Watering Can
Full, it rearranges the whole body—the bite of the handle, the lean, the drops you carried for nothing.
Ask the ApostateHow do I actually become a better person?
Stop adding virtues and start subtracting.
EssayWarming Cold Hands
Hands come back to you slowly at the stove: the ache, the itch, and the wisdom of holding them a little further off.
EssayTrimming the Wick
By morning the wick is a ruin; trimming it back to a clean edge is a small daily tending of the light.
EssayShelling Peas
A lap full of pods, the thumb finding the seam, and the slow evening rhythm of shelling peas one canoe at a time.
EssayThe Service Station at Three in the Morning
A motorway services at three in the morning—hospital light, no one you know, a non-place between places—and who you are when you stop there.
EssayThe Friction of a Rusted Bolt
The seized, corroded bolt that will not turn for any spanner—the particular frustration of meeting a thing rusted past persuasion.
EssayBeating the Rug
The rug that looks clean until you haul it up and beat it, and the astonishing cloud of dust that was living in it all along.
Word, when there is word.