Part 03

This story will ask you define home. This story
will also ask you to define alone. At different times
in the middle, the middle without beginning or
end. Don’t mock its eager asking. Though this story
is ordinary, it knows more than a formless cloud

split by the horizon or a reed bent over the water
not understanding its own reflection. It feels more.
This story will ask you to define them both with
the same words. Life is always three trick questions.
I once saw a painting in a gallery, somewhere in

Europe, that made me think the artist had imagined
a sunny day when the light slanted in from the
left and created all manner of shadows, even a dog
with eight legs. And then he had, for what reason we
will never know, splattered rain all over it, everything

soaked, even the four legs that couldn’t have been.
Maybe his morning got too warm, so he imagined
wet relief. For himself. For a lover. Maybe something
ruined his light, his saunter down the yellow streets,
something, someone. So, he took away from everyone

what he could not have. The street. The lover. Four feet.
How will you tell from the painting? How will you tell from
the shape of my grief what this story is? How will you tell
from my story what the shape of my grief is? How will
you tell from this story, what home is? What alone is?

How will you describe them both using the same words?

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