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In ‘The Glass Essay’, Anne Carson goes back to her mother’s house on a moor in the North to try to repair her broken heart. In the poem, Carson remembers a conversation she has with her mum in the kitchen:

You remember too much,
my mother said to me recently.

Why hold onto all that? An…

‘No,’ I laugh. ‘You look much better.’ When I hug her she feels like a wilting flower, one that keeps going even though there’s no sun. I want to be strong like Granny, but I’m not sure I’m made of the same matter as her. She’s iron and I’m something like dust.

I text Josh, a guy from back home that I worked in a pub with. Joe didn’t want me to be friends with him because he knew there was something between us. It makes me feel giddy, as though what I’m doing is against the rules. I’m allowed to do whatever I want now. Josh responds with a voice note:

…

He's not really a dandy, but neither is he careless about his appearance. He is not a libertine. He has a wife he loves, and two children. And yet he likes women. But he's never made a career as a "lady's man." He believes that that sort of career is a career of contemptible "substitution" and mo…

(The proprietress of the bar turns out a light. The record stops playing. They're in semi-darkness. The late but eluctable hour when the cafes close is fast approaching. They both close their eyes, as if seized by a feeling of modesty. The well-ordered world has thrown them out, for their adventure…