Ange Mlinko

Boston Flower Market

Transformation vs. Encryption — a browning banana is aging the flowers in the vase, a transformation of five bucks into dying daisies (I’ll be the rose, you be the pansy).

Mnemosyne vs. Treasury — beyond the marble balustrade of the Bourse (stained glass with scenes of the stations of the exchange) a vault where gold in the form of ink is stored in books of metaphors, which exponentially increases the value of the gold (you be poesy, I’ll be the proxy).

Loiterer vs. Flaneur — ‘Miss, this train must be goin somewhere a young lady like you must want to go / I see you sittin here each day like it takes you farther than your bike.’ ‘I go downtown / walk around / then I return.’ ‘Girl / viz. Ms. // you don’t just reject, you contravene a kiss!’

Ornament vs. Accident — Jean-Jacques Rousseau wrote that writing is an unnecessary luxury trade like goldsmithing. The goldsmith Benvenuto Cellini never wrote about nature and solitude — he didn’t have the luxury.

‘Miss this train / scenes of the station / increases the value
Solitude he didn’t have / five bucks / treasury beyond the / May day’

As even collage has an organizing principle to skirt, it’s Sanity vs. Ambition, a psychological thriller. Or, if you prefer, it’s a May day, 80 degrees, an unusually early summer. You be eros, I’ll be pensée.