I wrote you a card, but now I don't know where it's gone.

Instead, I write you an email apologising for the lack of a card, and also, what the card might have, if I remember rightly, said. But the words - they are not static, they are not safe. I know that some day, in the near future, when I dig it up again, the words will not be the same.

Sometimes, when I write, I want to say something, but in the very act of putting thoughts into words, the words lead me where I do not want to go. So increasingly I don't even try to vocalise how I feel - telling myself that there is no need to. Entente cordiale, comme ci comme ça.

But it's there, humming, pulsating, lucent beneath the surface of mutual accord: the possibility that you might actually understand hanging, unsaid, in the air. Little filaments of hope, crackling, trying to bridge the gaps and spaces, warding off the charge of lost meaning, and also, the knowledge of my wilful misapprehension.

Lately the air has been so thick with moisture, the brand new blank cards I left in my self-adhesive envelopes have sealed themselves in. Occasionally I have to fight the absurd impulse to send them off as they are, pristine in their exquisite, faithful silence.