Field guide No. 224
Unseasonal attendance
The tree came in white tie.
A bare tree in a snowy winter field is hung all over with crisp white napkins folded like leaves. It is dressed for a dinner nobody invited it to.
Field noteTwo hundred napkins, one ladder, a free afternoon. Entirely doable; merely undone.
Also possible, also breaking nothing
Hermit crab’s coffee cup shellHermit crabs move into cans, caps and cups already. The coffee rings are the only flourish.
Reserved seatingVelvet and olive wood sit together without argument. Only the booking is unusual.
The hinge gardenMoss grows on old metal left outside. This one has been left outside very well.
The missing guestTables can be built round a gap. Laying for whoever made it is etiquette, not metaphysics.