The Winter Edit

I love all films that start with rain:
rain, braiding a windowpane
or darkening a hung-out dress
or streaming down her upturned face;

one long thundering downpour
right through the empty script and score
before the act, before the blame,
before the lens pulls through the frame

to where the woman sits alone
beside a silent telephone
or the dress lies ruined on the grass
or the girl walks off the overpass,

and all things flow out from that source
along their fatal watercourse.
However bad or overlong
such a film can do no wrong,

so when his native twang shows through
or when the boom dips into view
or when her speech starts to betray
its adaptation from the play,

I think to when we opened cold
on a rain-dark gutter, running gold
with the neon of a drugstore sign,
and I’d read into its blazing line:

forget the ink, the milk, the blood—
all was washed clean with the flood
we rose up from the falling waters
the fallen rain’s own sons and daughters

and none of this, none of this matters.

 ✹

1: Comme des Garçons coat and dress. Pleats Please pouch. Man-tle hat.
2: Comme des Garçons coat. Pleats Please pouch. Man-tle hat.
3: DRKSHDW jacket. Man-tle trousers. Ann Demeulemeester shoes. Simona Tagliaferri bag.
4: Christian Wijnants cardigan. Ann Demeuleester top.
5: Man-tle coat. Comme des Garçons sweater. DRKSHDW leggings. Ann Demeulemeester boots. Reinhard Plank hat.
6: Preen sweater. Acne shirt. Man-tle skirt, bag, and hat. DRKSHDW boots.
7: Man-tle top. Comme des Garçons dress. DRKSHDW boots. Pleats Please bag. Kuboraum sunglasses.

Poem: 'Rain' by Don Paterson