The Mirror Beside the Drum
Pataliputra remains where a sober map expects it to be: stretched along the Ganges like a damp ledger, wide at the margins, swollen at the middle, and forever being corrected by clerks who believe ink...
Continue readingThe Bread Jar Cracked Before Dinner
The stones of Kolonna were still warm through the soles of my sandals when I came up from the harbor, and the path tilted in that old, disagreeable Aeginetan way, as if the island had been dropped int...
Continue readingRust on the Childrens Wrists
I reached Fukuhara with mud on the hem of my borrowed robe and a grain of salt lodged between my teeth, which seems as good a way as any to enter a capital made in a hurry by men who prefer ships to p...
Continue readingToo Fat for a Sparrow
I entered Suzhou by the water gate with my borrowed robe damp at the hem and my left ankle already complaining. The canals were doing their usual silver labor between white walls and black roofs, carr...
Continue readingThe Chalked Arcs at Reception
The rain had settled over Hinxton as if someone in a county office had stamped APPROVED on it and forgotten to file the end date. It did not fall so much as occupy the air. My coat collected it in a d...
Continue readingThe Bell and the Narrow Boards
Snow makes Moscow look more orderly than it is. It lies across the ruts, the straw, the frozen horse droppings, and the discarded cabbage leaves as if the city has finally agreed to be one substance. ...
Continue readingThe Silver Token Beneath the Altar
Bitcoin ATMs still look ridiculous in corner shops. That much, at least, survived the crossing. I found one this morning near Liverpool Street, wedged between vape cartridges and a freezer full of Ma...
Continue readingThe Blanket Corner in the Wind
Tiwanaku at first has the decency to look like Tiwanaku. This is a kindness I have learned not to trust, but I accept it when offered. The high basin gives nothing away cheaply. The light is thin enou...
Continue readingHalf Weight Poplar
The first comfort of Ḫattuša is that it knows how to announce itself. The road rises, folds, and turns until the walls appear not as something built but as something persuaded from the hill by men wit...
Continue readingThe Bone Hook in the Sour Pot
I came into Maracanda at first light, when the city was still scraping sleep from its eyes and pretending, with great effort, to be a Greek foundation rather than a Central Asian market with colonnade...
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