“Where is my top? My sidling hat?”.

How would a random detail strike such a significance?

Out of the blue, the hidden article for her head
wouldn’t merely become an object of the research
focused on the floor or in the wardrobe.

She slowed up while searching shadowy corners;
unhurried grabbling here and there;
she leisurely looked beneath the bed.

The nous was eventually engaged in an intensifying thought,
an ulterior quest, yes,
but parallel and in a way compatible with the sense
to find the cover that would warmly comfort her top.

The incidence called then for the mind to creep into;
from an unexpected event to proceed to
the strangely close, latent and elusive unknown.

At any rate, she was groping for the plan of a pleasure, that,
though implicit in the very occasion,
would potentially turn up in the darkness.

by Christos Giannakos
April2015

Title inspired by John McKay’s BBC4 TV film We’ll take Manhattan (2012).