The Sensation of the Search

The shafts of yellow October light fall, predicting geometry on the sidewalk, chafed with leaves. Walking the dog; not my dog, just the dog, some sort of fluffy spotted mutt who lives in my house (he belongs to my room-mate’s ex-husband, who, upon separating, preferred to keep the cat) I thrust my hands deep into my pockets. The russet smell of a Maritime autumn – wool, soil, frost, soot, and sage – weaves through the city, up from the harbour. The dog sniffs every patch of hard earth, snubbing the ground, his entire body trembling with the sensation of the search for something that remains unfound as I pull him away. (If I said that I did not want to be this tremor, to exist in this vibration of awareness, would it be a lie?) The dog ignores the small-faced pansies, wild and rumpled on the side of the pavement.

He stops to pee against a telephone pole covered with out-dated concert posters. From here, I can see, through a window, a man washing dishes. The man’s movements are slow and full of care. He turns around from his task, his neck arching, leaning to respond to a question asked of him. His neck is strong, its tendons tight with reaching, with longing. He looks at her, she who cooked the meal that he is cleaning up after – smoked salmon and sweet little new potatoes, unnecessarily peeled. She is beyond the frame of the window, but is surely looking at him, eyes heavy-lidded and half-closed, waiting to be kissed. He knows where the kiss lives. He removes his hands from the soapy water and leaves the sink. The dog pulls away.

Walnut, Chestnut, LeMarchant, Lilac.: there is a poetic simplicity (rustic, ephemeral; someone always leaving) to this place and the names of its streets. The trees are thicker North of the city: down Dublin to London, left at Vienna to Cork; I trick my feet into believing I’m leaving.