Preterition

For me, there are some seriously rotten things happening now, and some genuinely hopeful things as well – both in far more extreme degree than in a long time – and I can’t really talk about either of them except in the tiniest of metonymies.

Full moon, shining bright and pale across the ice. Tink and Zeugma, prospective mousers, spending the night away from home, and this cold house wind-rattled and empty except for me.

I feel, in Strand’s words,

Moonhandled And weird. The shivers Wash over Me, shaking my bones, my loose ends Loosen, And I lie sleeping with one eye open, Hoping

but that’s where I have to cut the quotation. I know what I hope, and it’s not for nothing.