To and fro

I hold the book, enjoying the feel of its nubby cover as I trace the glossy, Sendak-esque black cat on the front. Fanning the pages I inhale. The book smells good, and the paper is soft and heavy. Before embarking on the poems I read the acknowledgements, preface and afterword. I learn that a grimoire is a spellbook. It occurs to me that this Grimoire is not to be encountered as a solitary endeavour, so I invite a friend – Fatema – to join me. By serendipitous chance she is visiting and I’m able to show her the book. When she leaves we agree I will forward to her a PDF version.

I listen to Rebecca’s voice message about how her copy of The Grimoire of Grimalkin by Sascha Aurora Akhtar has disappeared since I left her home. The next day I find the same copy – fresh with dog ears – in my bookshelf with no recollection of how it got there. A grimalkin must have placed the book in my suitcase. (Rebecca does have a black cat with white paws and a white patch on his face and chin, not dissimilar from the grimalkin printed on the front and back cover of Akhtar’s black and red grimoire.) I reply to Rebecca that her book has not vanished, but materialised in my apartment instead. The Grimoire has brought itself from Manchester to Madrid.

In lieu of the book-as-object I turn to the PDF. ‘Immerito meo’, undeservedly mine, the opening poem places us in ‘An erratic locale’, an unstable, windy place that recalls the opening of Katharine Kilalea’s ‘Hennecker’s Ditch’. Akhtar’s initiatory ...