Degas’s Business Card

The truth-teller draws from a pocket the laminated slide of mm 85 x 55. You read – it turns pellucid. Through the foramen you see the blade that cuts a lover’s sup and dulled lime drunk alone in place of absinthe’s sleight of bliss. Here life ferments and the contact details for the artist sit

Just Punishment

Little Knowing, a lonely desert bird, was small and light of wing. Along the road he saw a woman. She smelled of cinnamon. “My bed,” she said, “smells of more – of myrrh and desert aloes. It is richly covered, soft – and ours – in colourful Egyptian linen.” Little knowing saw the tent to