Friday 1.59pm How many swans exactly line the harbour in Galway? And what is she doing up there, Our Lady in Effigy, filling an alcove in her perpetual pose of prayer? And another form, practising her tightrope while lunchers on a quayside stroll pretend not to notice because the world is not a circus after […]
PNSummer15
Water chits
Gallipoli, 1915 I joined the band to play the flute to chivvy the men to war – but mostly I was lackey to the medic, sent out with the water chits: scraps of paper with the words, please let the bearer have some drinking water, sent out to the lighter to fetch the water shipped […]
Magician
Trees at the end of the garden are golden, amber, lemon among lime but my mother’s pencil flits over paper silvering outlines she can see of a ghostly steeple, a roof and a path, before she turns them into colour. Applied with the flat of a squirrel-tail brush, thin washes in dove, aqua, citrine, but […]
Learning Magic
Look, look, the boy said, as he conjured flowers from the air. The father smiled. Very nice. And look, the boy said, making water disappear inside a newspaper then making it pour into a jug. Very impressive, the father said. Now look, the boy said, levitating and going too high. Be careful, the father said. […]
Paying Attention
Montmartre, Paris Concentrate. Money’s at stake. A man shuffles three counters, one marked on the underside. Shell game. Pull out your wallet. Put up €10. You win. Easy money. Smirk at one or two nearby idlers. Double or nothing? Sure. Why not? Bet your tenner plus his. Now, pay even closer attention. Watch those hands. […]
Zebra on East 55th and 3rd
Unfazed, he grazes on popcorn and nachos from a Keep New York City Clean litter bin, shrouded in a canopy of cloud that leaches through the steel bars of a subway vent. Sneakered commuters steam by, too busy to notice, too drunk on mobile devices. Outside P.J. Clarke’s, a woman’s whistle lassos a yellow cab, […]