with the tentative crunch of your shoes,the almost sheepish back-track—I’m sorry to say you caught my attention, and

as I describe your low-set cap concealing eyes, your polar fleece zipped tight, and your pinkish fingers collecting grave angles, I realise that this does paint a shifty picture; look

I wasn’t watching you deliberately! I was just sitting with my leftovers on the steps, enjoying the suspension of chill overcast delight before the spillover, Ernie Belle’s Venus is Home brooding in my ears. I was

thinking about existence, and my next payslip until you appeared. A clatter of my fork on Sistema and your eyes shot up! The fourth wall broke in both directions—a bolt of lightning could have hit the tree

and set us ablaze—I watched it send you scrambling up the path again, to the beginning of Lucy Dacus’ Most Wanted Man. I hope

you at least got some good photos.

Brooke Soulsby (she/her) is a publishing professional and emerging writer from Whangārei, now based in Te Whanganui a Tara. She wears her heart on her sleeve. Brooke is a co-editor of circular. Some of her work can be found in bad apple, Tarot, Mote, 4th Floor Journal, and elsewhere.