Dmitri is smoking on the roof again. Today the sky is low, a flat monotone of white. At the edge of the roof, silhouetted in his dark pea coat, he looks terribly romantic, like something from a French new wave film. Later, I bring something to his office, a press release from Sotheby’s. He does not get up from his desk, and as we speak I look down into one of his pale blue eyes, over the dramatic cracked body of his nose, and into the other blue eye.

On the train today was a line of women each tender and separate, this one with a spray of freckles, this one with earnest straight hair, a pair of clogs and a battered stoop sale pre-release edition of Jonathan Safran Foer. And that one, falling asleep, head bobbing against the train window, the tension delicately cording her lovely neck. She is wearing a dorky Nordic patterned cardigan, her hair is cropped short with a sparkly barrette trying to re-capture some femininity. Her blunt fingers are pushed into the book on her lap, trying to hold her place. Seven Things That Happy Couples Do.

I am trying to dig you out of my chest but I never knew how you entered in the first place and all I have is this spoon made of silk.