For England.

My dear,

There's something I must tell you.

There was a raven. It would come, often, roof-surfing on the lid of a jar in the snow-covered parts of me, lurking black like a prophesy, twirling my heart around like the witch's hat in the rec.

How tiring it must be, I would think, to find yourself a symbol, yet still sit proud. How tiring it must be to find yourself pretending to be dead, just to scare the tourists at the Tower.

Anyway. In that grief-quiet, sea-bound childhood the thing with feathers would come and tell me this was a dream and that everything would be ok. It would come and I would squeeze my eyes together, my fists together, and I would wake up. And the moon outside the window would blaze, brief. And daylight would always come again.

Ha! Pardonne-moi ce caprice d'enfant! You know Dickens had a raven called Grip? And Poe and he found themselves together in Philadelphia? And - perhaps - you know the rest of that fiction? Well. We mourn the loss of our familiars, our bonds. We grasp at the abstract no better than birds. And they too mourn.

Yes. I found myself in a dreamed Philly last night and my parents were gone. A chambermaid opened the door and you were asleep, naked, smiling, on top of the bed. My dying friend was angry: I owed him five pounds. I squeezed and squeezed but the bird never came.

Ravens pretend to be crows, entice them to come and share food. But they have no time for seagulls, which they chase away. I wish I was a crow, not a seagull. I wish I could surf on snow-covered roofs. Perhaps one day. Perhaps one day we'll do it together?

Yes. Anyway. Again.

It's time to go.

A kiss from your history: X