A Doll in Bute Park

In Chicago, this April is still almost-spring: snow piles still cling to building crevices, crocuses uncoil just to have epic winds and low-30s temps bombard them. Winter has come, and it is not yet ready to go. For whatever reason, this in-between atmosphere is taking me back to one drizzly fall morning in Cardiff, now many years past.

I am walking in Bute Park over damp orange leaves and green, green grass. An early-morning mix of mist and fog jumbles the corners of my sight; only a lonely jogger joins me here. The planted, tamed trees rebel, their roots jutting up through orange and emerald foliage to kiss the wet, lichened stones. It is a gray day, of the almost-white sort, the type of day when restlessness broils up through my veins, itchy.

In a book in my bag, I have a little woman.

Home printed vintage pictures are my bookmarks du jour.

Today, I think, she belongs here, in this park, out of the closed-in world of unread pages: the hooded doll venturing into the drizzle.