The Broken Clay Seal
The first thing that told me I was still on the Bogotá savanna was the light. It fell hard and clean over the high ground, then broke itself on thatch, smoke, and hanging maize leaves. Shadows in Baca...
Continue readingCracked Gourds At West Kiln Court
The Avenue of the Dead was already awake when I arrived, which is to say that Teotihuacan had begun its daily business of making people feel small and clay feel important. The Pyramid of the Sun sat t...
Continue readingThe Black Hawk Tile
Bombay is still Bombay at first glance: BEST buses leaning into traffic as if late for an argument, black-and-yellow taxis nosing through puddles of coconut water and petrol sheen, paan spit making re...
Continue readingThe Bitten Plug
The road into Trowulan was ankle-deep in red dust before the morning had finished deciding whether to become hot or merely insulting. The capital announced itself less by walls than by brick: brick dr...
Continue readingThe White Feather On The Wet Corner
The first thing I noticed in Niort was not the war, though the war had kindly placed itself everywhere for my convenience. It was in the station clock with its dirty glass, in the blue coats moving in...
Continue readingThe Fish Bone Groove
The harbor was awake before the sun cleared the coconut tops. Malacca does not rise; it is shaken loose. Men shouted from prahus with wet ropes across their shoulders, Gujarati brokers argued over pep...
Continue readingThe Louvered Nest
Nevsky Prospect had the appearance of a city holding its breath through its teeth. The tram rails lay bright and useless in the mud, as if the street had been polished for a parade that no one now int...
Continue readingThe Greasy Board Of The Beer Seller
The desert air crossed the river before sunrise and came into Meroë with the faint coolness of water it did not intend to keep. It slipped under my sleeve, found the line where the brass spring clip p...
Continue readingThe Patched Basin Collar
The first thing I saw in Houston this morning was not the Moon. It was a red circle drawn in grease pencil around a number on a newspaper weather map. The Sunday Chronicle lay folded on the counter o...
Continue readingThe Chicken Waiting To Become A Fee
The first thing I noticed this morning in Mbanza Kongo was not the cathedral bell, though it struck with the same patient European vanity one hears in many ports and courts touched by Portugal. It was...
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