cold feet talk like hands
SIGHTINGS 41
curated by Julia Eilers Smith
Leonard & Bina Ellen Galley, Montreal, Québec
May 27 - September 15, 2024
Text by B. Brookbank
Lettuce cups sit on my counter as ploys
To ask for money, yesterday, or tomorrow
Spiraling, focusing on the thumping below my forehead
Eagles have the best eyesight
While my eyes only work on shift, never on time
Should I have waited for the sun set to begin,
To feel the light diffusing through the windows
Patience ploys, as lettuce sits
Waiting to be prepped for the oil and balsamic
While cold feet talk like hands
On the plane, as we boarded to visit for the weekend, there was a peculiar scent following me. I wondered if the scent was tears. Perhaps the smell wasn’t following me but was everywhere. Subtle, yes, but heavy enough to feel as I passed the rows of awaiting passengers along the departure gates. I decided that tears don’t have a scent. They might taste like salt, but no, they don’t smell. Maybe the scent was the scent of walls.
I know eagles have the best eyesight. They look intently through trees at mice upon the rotted earth. Maybe they are looking at the beauty below them, as we ravage it. Pigs must have the best nose. Sniffing for angelic scraps, leaving room for anything to become blessed enough to eat. What do these animals feel when they lose one of their own? I sat on the plane and wondered what they long for. I wondered what it might look like to see an eagle through the pane of glass of the airplane window, or what it might look like through their eyes to see us.
The air in the summer hangs wet like ponds. My hair curls backwards in that air, skin metallic. I drove along the black highway into the city where my father’s house once was. Walking into the house I noticed the dining room table was flipped upside down. Black plastic chairs lined the circumference of the amber wooden structure, a padded cloth protected the floor. Posed like a pedestal, the legs stood at mid-waist awaiting hands, a phone, a fruit. The room was crooked and so were we.
I dumped out the contents of my suitcase onto the upside-down table. A teal and lace dress shirt, sweatpants, three pairs of briefs, face oil, anxieties, a camera, athletic shorts, a graphic tee, socks, a water bottle, spit, laptop, chargers, grief, duvet feathers, an apple, lube, spoons, dust, a grey cropped hoodie, journal, pen, sunscreen, a loonie, musk, bacteria, pleasure, sunglasses, keychain, conversations, receipts, some of yesterday, film negatives, idioms, dirt, moisturizer.
The previous time I was in this house my partner and I saw a ghost. In the corner of our room a silhouette contoured the wainscotting around the window frame. Our cat turned and stared toward the corner of the room, understanding the presence of shadow. It was her face, we knew this. We saw it more than once. In fact, we saw it for many days, weeks, even months. The silhouette rested upon the wainscotting looking over our bedroom. We are taught to be afraid of ghosts, but with this ghost we were lucky.
Through a pane of glass, I can now see that the table has gone, the chairs folded and packed away. I can’t tell if the silhouette has faded or simply receded into an idea. A pane, a body, glass, a barrier. Maybe we could still see the ghost if we had the vision of a cat, nocturnal, perceiving the shadow through glass.
I'd like to acknowledge the support of Canada Council for the Arts and Est-Nord-Est in the creation of this project.
Documentation by Jean-Michael Seminaro
