Genji Monogatari XXII: Purple trousers

Carrying a boulder on one's
back is both a metaphor
& a painful way to go
shopping. Even with-
out it shopping / takes
strength; & she would
prefer to use that for
other things, like
starting up a new
Poetry Café in the
Prefecture where she
was born, a calm time-
warp full of clear-faced
students, murmuring couples,
tiny tables & red wine. There
would be vases of purple
trousers on each table
& on the counter a
special bunch, just
for her, wrapped in
a poem. On the walls
videos would be playing,
footage of an unknown
person who seemed
to be assigning human
characteristics to non-
human things & cloning
animals for experimental
purposes. Her geta creaked
on the dry cobblestones. She
wondered how she could
lose the boulder. Everywhere
she looked she saw difficulties.