Category: Brigid’s Diary
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2306: Brigid’s Diary – A Six
Part 14, Brigid’s Diary: Winter, 1836 – 1841, Cagnes-sur-Mer, France Where Waiting Is Believing The arbours are vine-brittle skeletons touched with ice; terracotta pots lay shattered by winter’s slow fist, and even the small grey angels above the door have surrendered to grimaces. For these five years, we’ve lived in a stone cottage adjoining the…
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2206: The Liturgy
Liturgy for a Long Absence — Cagnes-sur-Mer, 1836 – 1841 Where Waiting Is Believing I. The Winter That SettledWinter settled into the stone cottagelike a tenant who refuses to leave.The vines are bare,brittle,skeletal.Their fingers scratching at the skyand demanding warmththe season refuses to give. Even the small angelic statuesin the garden grimace at the cold,their…
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1606: Brigid’s Diary – A Six
Part 13, Brigid’s Diary: The Abbey of Saint-Roman Beaucaire, July 1836, Camouflage The Beaucaire Fair moved like the Rhône in flood, bodies and bargains braiding into one slow current, and Felreil folding his foreignness into the merchants’ black coats and polished leather while quick fingers rehearsed their small rebellions at the height of a purse.…
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1506: The Liturgy
Part 13: Liturgy for the Beaucaire Fair(for those who buy and those who are bought) I. The Commerce of CrowdsThe fairground swallows them whole.Brigid and Felreil, two more bodiesin the great migration of need and greed. Trestle tables groan under linen and lace,under knives that promise to never dull,under potions that promise to never fail.Merchants…
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0906: Brigid’s Diary – A Six
Brigid’s Diary: Part 12.2, Arles, Spring 1836 Under the Floorboard The shouting started next door: boots on stairs, a man’s voice like a stomp, the scrape of furniture across wood, and the thin-pitched sound of children when they learn the house is not theirs. I tasted blood where I’d bitten my lip without noticing, salt…
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0806: The Liturgy
Brigid’s Diary: Part 12.2, “Liturgy for the Loose Floorboard”(Arles, 1836: where rebellion survives by passing from hand to hand) I. The Sound of ArrivalIt begins next door,the shouting,the boots on stairs,a man’s voice heavyas the stomp of his feet. Furniture dragged across wood floors.Children cryingbecause strangers have enteredtheir small kingdom of wallsand will not explain…
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0206: Brigid’s Diary – A Six
Part 12.1, Brigid’s Diary: Arles, France, Spring 1836 The Yellow House and the Thin Law We took rooms at 2 Place Lamartine in a yellow house that looked like warmth from a distance, and up close smelled of damp plaster, fried onions, and bodies worked too hard for too little. Around us, the neighbourhood spoke…
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0106: Liturgy for a Starry Night
Liturgy for a Starry Night, Part 12.1, Arles, Spring 1836(where beauty is the last thing left that belongs to us) I. The Yellow HouseIt sits on the corner,mustard yellow, warm to the eye,a promise of shelterthat the nose immediately contradicts. Damp plaster. Fried onion.Lingering acrid smoke from firesthat never fully caught. This is Arles.This is…
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26 May: Six Sentence Story
The Accent of Exile Brigid’s Diary: Part 11.2, Avignon, Spring 1836 I crushed a sprig of tansy between my fingers when the fishmonger’s voice split the morning, “Hear her English accent; she stirs rebellion,” and a bitter, cold metal scent spooled in me like warning smoke. The market thinned into silence so quickly it felt…
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19 May: Six Sentence Story
An Undated Note Inserted in Brigid’s Diary Part 11.1, Avignon If this diary is ever found, know first that we did not leave England lightly; we gave it our backs, our hands, our winters, and still it asked for more …more hunger, more silence, more gratitude for wages that would not keep bread before a…
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