Cypripedium · curatorum
cabinet of curiosities · case no. 07
flattened between two heavy books for thirty years, the orchid is now paper. it remembers a colour: faintly pink, faintly other. the smell it had has gone elsewhere. the shape has remained out of stubbornness.
the cabinet is careful with it. one breath misplaces a petal. it is placed near the leaf and across from the small handprint, as one pressed thing should sit near another.
field-note · pressed between Sebald and Bachelard; both books warped slightly.