Els van Leeuwen

Notes in the margin

It seems every book I pick up these days has them – his little pencil marks – an asterisk here, a comment there or something underlined. I have come to look for them. My eyes will scan furtively ahead, finding them out. They are like tiny clues to a mystery I will never solve. How can two people really know each other? Our conversations, our caresses are a commentary on the side of both our realms of being – carefully placed markers of our longing for communion. Like prayer. Like loss and little redemptions.

ripe persimmons
the ladder left standing
in the tree