Olga Dermott-Bond

Virginia Woolf comes around unannounced

Virginia takes her coat off. I make her tea. She removes the stones from her pockets, arranging them carefully in size order on my kitchen table. Each vowel she utters is like a Fabergé egg. She asks, what it’s like to live with someone like me? I lift the stones into my arms, cradle their awkward, disparate weights to me, like a fretting child who won’t sleep or ever love me back. Like this, I reply.