dreams and the living
She dreams of death. Dreams are not prophetic, he says, when you dream something, the opposite must come true.
Awake, she thinks of what it means to live.
—
Swaying chandeliers. High-beamed ceilings. Stone walls, stone pillars, breezeways. Brick by brick. Puddles of snow and the buds of preformed leaves – leaves of all the trees she’s only ever heard about but never seen, until now, and their colours.
The chilled air and blonde hair and euphonious careless speech.
But all she can think about are the verdant humidity of a rainforest, the unaspirated staccato of her people’s speech, and clothes flapping on a bamboo pole, silhouetted against the sky.
