For Erik
(2009)
I stop shaving and go into the other room to look at the photographs I have blue-tacked to my wall: one is a portrait of my grandpa as a young boy, his blonde hair long and locked, with a pin in it like a little girlʼs; I imagine him at this age eating dinners alone in the kitchen before any of the rest of the family, his claim as first-born son (it then occurs to me that I also eat my dinners alone).
pdf: American Memory