The Self-Correcting Flood

The street begins with a post box - no, a post office. The post office begins with a counter. The counter begins with a woman who asks what I want to send and I say everything and she says that will be expensive and I say I know.

The fact that the cat is on the windowsill and the fact that the windowsill is peeling and the fact that the lease is up and the fact that the sycamores - no, the planes, the planes are the ones with the mottled bark, the sycamores are the ones I remember wrong - the fact that the planes are in leaf and the fact that the leaf is a kind of hand and the fact that the hand belongs to nobody and the fact that nobody is a word I use when I mean everyone I know.

The fact that I meant the post office, not the post box - the post box is smaller, red, round-shouldered, the kind that remembers the war. The post office is larger and has a counter and the counter has a woman who asks what I want to send.

The fact that the kitchen tap drips. The fact that the border closed. The fact that the kitchen tap drips and the fact that the border closed are in the same sentence and the sentence doesn't know which fact is more important.

The fact that I keep getting it wrong. The fact that the shop - no, the shop that was a shop is now a flat. The fact that the flat has a door and the door has a colour and the colour was green - no, blue, the colour was blue and I said green and the green is still in the sentence because the wrong version is part of the truth.

The fact that the flood doesn't rise. The fact that it accumulates. The fact that accumulation is not a river, not a rising, not a tide, but a listing, a catalogue, a mind putting things in a row and getting the row slightly wrong and correcting the row and the correction is not neat, the correction is the row with the wrong thing still in it and the right thing next to it and both of them staying.

The fact that the pie is in the oven. The fact that the policy is on the table. The fact that they are at the same level and the fact that I can't tell you which one matters more because the telling would be a sermon and the sermon is not in the flood, the flood is just the list, the list and the repairs.