She had seen the Chilean coast before, though only in paintings, then dreams. She’d seen his face as well, it seemed, in fleeting glimpses or in the tides of a reverie. Now closer, inside an actual moment, from a chair on a terrace near the water’s edge, neither the coast nor his features were entirely true to form—better, in fact, to her delight.
The tables had been cleared. And one by one the guests were swaying themselves into dusk. Spectres of spirit animals trailed behind.
Diagonally from across the courtyard, clouded in his own smoky exhales, the man had seen her too. He wondered what spell made her so radiant—the night’s glow, the way it softened her in pastels; the ocean’s slow breath, how it conversed with her own.
By now the waiters had traded their trays for guitars, their ponchos laced with bells, their tip jars rattling, their dance one of courtship, the Cueca as they knew it. And by night’s end, the man would swap his seat with a hawk, she with a dove, and together they would fly over the long, narrow, enchanted nation.
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It is rain in my face. is Mat Jones. His self titled, debut full length arrives next week through DZ Tapes, and can be streamed now from the label’s bandcamp. We’ve been fortunate enough to present a few of Mat’s performances (the most recent on display today), both solo and as half of Pressed And, who will take the DMS stage this Saturday.