What do you carry?
On grey days, wet days
when light scatters
beneath beer bottles
and the compost bin –
when I arrive to work soaked,
mascara sketching cheap streaks
under my eyes –
I look into my goodwill purse
of brown leather, worn and heavy.
The purse is tired. So am I.
Half-empty, carrying
a simple thought deep
in our seams:
we will die
never having owned
a decent umbrella
through all these cities of rain.
On grey days, wet days
when light scatters
beneath beer bottles
and the compost bin –
when I arrive to work soaked,
mascara sketching cheap streaks
under my eyes –
I look into my goodwill purse
of brown leather, worn and heavy.
The purse is tired. So am I.
Half-empty, carrying
a simple thought deep
in our seams:
we will die
never having owned
a decent umbrella
through all these cities of rain.
Eadweard Muybridge
[Woman Opening Parasol], 1883 - 1886, printed 1887
