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Cycling
by Anna Coppens
I noticed that he had resumed smoking, how his body moved, as if electric, back home, contorted and relaxed as he rolled a cigarette. I didn’t like that he smoked. But I liked seeing his shoulders back, expertly manoeuvring the bike without holding the handlebars. I had always wanted to bike with my hands in my pockets.
He navigated Dutch with ease. I liked the way he moved over the unfamiliar sounds, pulling together the fragments of language he had gathered back home into sentences that hung together securely. We ordered coffee, he in Dutch, me in English. Coffee gave way to beer, and our conversations about travels and friends and home shifted, allowing space to pass into the depths that came with letting go of him from the other side of the world.
We returned to our bikes, and I glanced at him, his body, breathing him in, in the same way he inhaled cigarette smoke. Being with him brought back memories, fresh and raw. I let them flood in, wary of their fragility, of how the porcelain canal houses lining my Oma’s windowsill were mirrors of those here. How easily porcelain breaks and the pieces scatter apart. How they can be brought together, letting the light in.
Anna is featured in our issue 01 print . Get your copy here!