as a species we dreamed
Just a few days until I flit off for the food course, so of course now I am hearing all the delightful things I will miss while I am on Galiano Island, like the invite the whole house just received to a friend's wedding. Ah well. That's life. I paid my tuition today and I am going to Galiano and I will learn...things...and work on the farm. Unsurprisingly, this course is looking like it's all women. Boys apparently do not care especially much about food, creation, community, and communion, so long as the girls are taking care of these things for them.
Graduation was last night and we watched a bunch of our friends receive their degrees, and also their pretty, pretty hoods. And the faculty in all their regalia. We do love their funny hats.
Anyway.
Pas de Deux
Ciaran Carson
It all began in Take Two, what with us looking at clothes.
You'd brushed against me as I stepped aside from the mirror
to let you size yourself up against a blue pencil skirt,
pinching its waistband to your waist with your arms akimbo.
I caught you taking me in from the corner of your eye
as I fingered the nap on a Donegal tweed jacket.
Nice jacket, you said. Yes? I said. Yes, you said, I love that
Harris tweed, the heathery feel of the handwoven wool.
You're not from around here, I said. No, from elsewhere, you said.
As from another language, I might have said but did not.
Though your English was perfect I couldn't place the accent
and you'd put things in such a way no native would have done.
N'a pas fait qui commence, you came to say later, only
begun is not done. And so it was we got acquainted,
as with the glow of our cigarettes we'd scrawl neon signs
to each other on the dark, the words fading instantly
as written, comprehended by the eye in retrospect
as over us a helicopter drowned conversation.
That was the kind of spin that passed for dialogue back then,
one side revolving the other's words for other meanings,
or sidestepping the issue, demanding actions instead.
It took us some time to establish our identity,
for you'd learned where you came from to choose your words carefully.
And often you'd seal my lips with a kiss as silently
under a blanket we'd struggle into one another
to end up sleeping like two naked spoons or back to back,
the second-hand pencil skirt on your side of the wardrobe,
the second-hand tweed jacket brushing against it on mine.
Graduation was last night and we watched a bunch of our friends receive their degrees, and also their pretty, pretty hoods. And the faculty in all their regalia. We do love their funny hats.
Anyway.
Pas de Deux
Ciaran Carson
It all began in Take Two, what with us looking at clothes.
You'd brushed against me as I stepped aside from the mirror
to let you size yourself up against a blue pencil skirt,
pinching its waistband to your waist with your arms akimbo.
I caught you taking me in from the corner of your eye
as I fingered the nap on a Donegal tweed jacket.
Nice jacket, you said. Yes? I said. Yes, you said, I love that
Harris tweed, the heathery feel of the handwoven wool.
You're not from around here, I said. No, from elsewhere, you said.
As from another language, I might have said but did not.
Though your English was perfect I couldn't place the accent
and you'd put things in such a way no native would have done.
N'a pas fait qui commence, you came to say later, only
begun is not done. And so it was we got acquainted,
as with the glow of our cigarettes we'd scrawl neon signs
to each other on the dark, the words fading instantly
as written, comprehended by the eye in retrospect
as over us a helicopter drowned conversation.
That was the kind of spin that passed for dialogue back then,
one side revolving the other's words for other meanings,
or sidestepping the issue, demanding actions instead.
It took us some time to establish our identity,
for you'd learned where you came from to choose your words carefully.
And often you'd seal my lips with a kiss as silently
under a blanket we'd struggle into one another
to end up sleeping like two naked spoons or back to back,
the second-hand pencil skirt on your side of the wardrobe,
the second-hand tweed jacket brushing against it on mine.