I've been having trouble with beginning things that don't lead anywhere, finding myself with a phrase or a line that seems so lovely, but no other words want to be its friend, and I can't seem to coax them. This feels like one of those, so this might just be phase one until I find something better to do with it.
*
*
Obligation looked me
square in the face
two laser beams locking sightlines
securing antiquities [not worth their weight in bones]
establishing panoptic enforcement like
each hair counted by God himself shone with
a seraphic something where his hand stroked
strand one hundred twenty nine thousand sixty one
strand one hundred twenty nine thousand sixty two
strand one hundred twenty nine thousand sixty three
strand one hundred twenty nine thousand sixty four
[mothers took daughters at $8.25 admission each
to be moved by sebum and malassezia glistening
behind 2" of glass and fluorescent display lights]
Nightly Ines came to wash the day's fingerprinted smudges
from the translucent tomb, each greasy oval removed with
meditative offering before she knelt to pray for her dying son;
the most living thing between the custodian and the reincarnation
Windexed away in delicate circles,
stroke by stroke to remember his first cough
[Oré poriahu vereko ñande jara]
his first fall
his first scan
his first injection
[Oré poriahu vereko ñande jara]
She brought him to my encased feet
laid him at my bronzed pedestal, before
setting off the alarms
sending in the guards
with one small, tired hand
pounding on the glass she'd just cleaned,
keeping pace with her wails, vibrations
confusing security strategies, beams scattering
giving my brown eyes a red rest
giving my congealed thoughts a blue fluidity,
flexibility to stay still as they cuffed and carried her away
boarded and covered him up.
Mary in the whole-wheat toast.
Jesus in the chocolate.
Ines in the jail.
Me in the museum.
Only Enzo granted room to breath
in the Paraguayan ground.
1 comment:
We are reading. Enjoying. Thinking.
Because you are writing. Visualizing. Imagining.
Words matter.
So, keep on, keeping on. Please.
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