A writer uses a pen instead of a scalpel or blow torch.

Half a page--and the morning is already ancient.

How does this happen? To fall in love and be disassembled.

Before the real city could be seen it had to be imagined, the way rumours and tall tales were a kind of charting.

Every immigrant family, it seems, has someone who does not belong in the new country they have come to. It feels like permanent exile to that one brother or wife who cannot stand a silent fate in Boston or London or Melbourne. I’ve met many who remain haunted by the persistent ghost of an earlier place.

What began it all was the bright bone of a dream I could hardly hold onto.

We all have an old knot in the heart we wish to untie.