Six Poems: Liane Strauss
The Window of Appearances I On the third day of my visit that June of the ironically timed year of perfect hindsight, we take off our masks and eat together. I set up my laptop on the glass table Dad made, which we love especially that week. It won’t fit in your new apartment; it already belongs to the buyers. Like none of us, it will remain where it began. Over mahi mahi and your famous Levantine salad the MET broadcast of Akhenaten begins. It’s hypnotic, I say, launching into a rambling, semi-informed disquisition on minimalism. I reach for the patter of rain, horse hooves, the hum of the calendar, the quadrilles of planets, the Dansk bowl we have filled with roasted pepitas. Something like, the patterns that keep us from seeing the big picture are the rhythms that keep us connected to each other, or stuck, if we don’t recognize them for what they are. If they’re foregrounded it’s harder to ignore them.