“He could tell she knew he was watching, for there was an uneasiness to her stride and to how she gripped her handbag until the taxi arrived.”

“⁠Anyone can see I am walking in a circle.”

“He hadn’t been sure if he was supposed to fight back or just take the beating, if he could dodge the blows or cover his face or what, but it wound up not mattering.”

“⁠Place a man and a woman in a train carriage together and the mind doggedly closes in—but between him and Katharine there had been something else.”

Since last summer, Falapishi has undertaken the nightly practice of waking himself with an alarm in the small hours and recording, in a bedside notebook, and with the lights still off, whatever fragments he can recall of the dream he’d been having.

“gul     any flower / gul     a candle’s tongue”