what was i thinking?    - rosamund purcell


reading owl's head i drift back to my place with all the things i've collected and left to stay together, that after time seem to be all unconsciously gathered in my absence, to hold my space. i think of the curator with growing fondness, wondering what kind of person he would be if he suddenly materialized, watching my bemusement. the dismissive one, the frustrated one, the judge rests. i think of the collections as spontaneously self-generated, layers of sediments, sentiments, or strangely dissociated,  from sentiment, layers combining, combed, by tide, with dust, honeycombed, pocketed, all in one time, now, all time commingled, selfless in a room. think of the book voyage around my room. who wrote that? is that a real book? or a book someone told me of that i would never find? like river and empty sea. i don't voyage often there. i sit in my daybed like a crow's nest, looking at this screen, at pictures of the day or pages of letters, trails drawing my eyes, floaters dancing to and fro, objects both inside and peripheral, occasionally glancing over at me, turning round toward something that catches the slanting rays from my window. i think this is the book i live yet can't read. this is the book if i were to write i would want my ideal reader to read.