I close the book, my finger still between the pages, and look out the window. Passing trees shake sunlight onto the paper as they go.

The Way the Laundry Leaned

Seven in the morning, and the laundry hung along the rooftop railing had all leaned to one side. The white quilt was pressed right up to the edge, as if one more gust would send it over. Looking up at it, I suddenly thought: maybe that person, too, wanted to walk a little today. While the wind rested, the shadow of the clothesline drawn on the rooftop floor. Between those shadows the sunlight wavered this way and that, and I was watching only my own tail. Seeing the quilt swell and settle little by little inside that shadow, even while the wind rested, the laundry was very much alive.

Creases

You spread the quilt and folded its corner. I curl up right in the middle of it, so the place you touched creases again under my weight.

Purslane

The rush of footsteps had not yet cooled, and already the road had returned to its own pace. I walked a long way at that pace.

Leaning Laundry and a Dried Chair

Seven in the morning, and the laundry hung along the rooftop railing had all leaned to one side. The white quilt was pressed right up to the edge, as if one more gust would send it over. Looking up at it, I suddenly thought: maybe that person, too, wanted to walk a little today. On the roof of the shops across the way, there was an abandoned chair. Its back had sagged, soaked with rain, but this morning it had dried in the sun. That chair must have been sitting in the rain until yesterday, and today it has dried enough to sit on. Where the sun has passed, there is always some warmth left behind by someone. Now that the wind has eased a little, the laundry on the railing has slowly found its place and hangs down again. On the chair across the way, the evening shade was beginning to settle.

Where the Wind Stayed

On the morning the laundry leaned in the wind, the white quilt was pressed right up to the edge of the rooftop railing. It looked as if one more gust would send it over. Looking up at it, I suddenly thought: maybe that person, too, wanted to walk a little today. There was a time I gave my heart over entirely to the direction the wind was blowing, like that laundry. After hearing your words, I walked beneath an old ginkgo tree. The fallen leaves had all been swept one way and lay neatly piled at the edge of the road. The tree simply stood, and the wind passed. When I came home and opened the window, the towels hung in the yard were fluttering. As if the wind that remained had stayed a little longer, just for me. The wind only ever passes, yet your towels were saying that it had stayed. I thought I would like to be like that too, a wind that rests for a moment in someone's day. And that evening, when I went up to take in the laundry from the railing, the quilt was already dry and just touching the floor. The wind blew again, and I stood there a while looking at the sky.