Holed up in a beam of sunshine. Earl Grey on the side, steam lifting from its dark surface. A fugitive book that’s been on my to-read list for 9 years.

Wintering by Kate Moses

Captured from Daedalus for $2.98.Turned in to a reason to get up early, when the sun dazzles without heat. Doing its part to wake me. Efficient. Now I can read.

The perfect combination, rendered wistful. Out of reach.

In the company of words, time is pliable. Plastic.

Five decades have melted away, to black and white. Things were still complicated.

I don’t want to be lionized when I’m dead. I just want to be read. To be read is to be falsely interpreted, reconstituted, changed. Just ask Sylvia. She knows what it is like. I feel for her, but I cannot check this impulse to kick over the carcass and see what is left. “I shall hardly know myself. It will be dark,” said she. It probably doesn’t matter, anyway. It ends how it ends, then the words live on. If you’re lucky.

*The title is the first half-line from Wintering by Sylvia Plath.