The Last Lamp in a Burning City You are sitting in a room that smells of dust and scorched wood, and outside the walls of

The Cell That Made the Poem You are sitting in a cell in Montgomery Jail, Lahore, in the winter of 1951, and the light that

The Letter You Never Sent You have written it three times already. The paper is still there, folded along a crease you made without thinking,

The Man in the Mirror of His Own Films You are watching yourself disappear and you know it, which is the worst part. Not the

The Man Standing at the Edge You are standing with your back to everything you have ever known. The fog below is not atmospheric effect

The Boat That Never Arrives You are standing in front of it, and you cannot explain why you will not move. There is no violence

The Forest That Does Not Care You are standing at the edge of a treeline as the last of the afternoon light collapses behind the

The Rustling Behind the Wainscot You are reading in a rented room, late, the kind of late where the building has gone quiet in a

The Locked Room at the Center of the House You are sitting in a room you have lived in for years, and something is wrong.

The Canvas Before the Storm You are not looking at the painting. You are inside it, and the distinction has already dissolved. The light does

The Room Where Everything Was Too Beautiful You have arranged the room so carefully that you cannot move in it anymore. The candles are the

The Photograph You Cannot Put Down You are holding it again. Not because you meant to, not because you went looking for it — you