Having gotten sick on fumes. Having forgotten how to put a block of dry ice in the chest. Having handled the ice bare-handed, handled the ice bare-chested, put the ice in place of the wrong organ, used the ice to cool an organ I no longer wanted. Having mixed the ice with the wrong kind of liquid. Having spilled all down my front. Having stood at the bottom of the stairs, the blank stair the nothing stair under which is lodged every dream of heaven when you’re lying on your back and every absence when you’re lying on your front. Having feared for myself and curled over like a bleak pebble. Having feared for my selves, and wound them up with chain link, my selves running roughshod to the edge of town, my selves all scrapped in a heap with rusted sawed-off limbs. Having misunderstood the structure of time and how it meant to proceed from here on out. Having thought I could survive speaking aloud and indeed I could but not the words I spoke. Having imagined myself a cool, hoofed animal treading the plain sufficient in her food and water. Having known I would experience swifter degeneration, but not having predicted which would shrug off first. Having never before realized how many fine muscles fan out about the act of reading. Having spit on the floor even though I would have to scrub the floor. Having spit my heart’s strange weeds all specked with phosphorescent mites. Answer when I call and answer it again and then when I call, answer, and put me at ease.
Photo By: Robert Fornal
