Monday, August 29
THINGS EXPOSED TO THE AIR Say sugar has a mouth. How would I taste in it? Like sweat, like lake water, like dust from a ceiling fan, like the lowest leaves of the squash plant, like how soft and yellow they are, like oil, like badly sharpened knives, like hail just after it pelts the yard, snow just before it melts? Thank god it doesn't. Have a mouth, I mean. Though maybe my scent still saturates it like a mood, covert and everywhere. This is the mistake of leaving things exposed to the air, I say to my daughter. It's not fair. And it's why I don't need to read the climate change report. When I brush her hair, the world smells like smoke. (Claire Wahmanholm)