THE BORROWED LINE

once again, + a grain of salt.



***


-everything that every grew, the goose and the gander and the gosling too, the duck upon the water when he feels that way too says



***


on my way home from the grocery store i pass an old man and his caretaker sitting on their front porch. this old man is my landlord’s father. i know this because cambridge is a very small town. the agassiz neighborhood in particular is very small. (i met a girl recently who was the former roommate of my coworker’s roommate’s cousin. this cousin was my bartender at the b-side lounge a few months ago, when i was there having drinks with my coworker, his roommate (this b-side bartender-girl’s cousin) and my boss, who is the childhood best friend of the boyfriend of the girl i recently met who is the former roommate of my coworker’s roommate’s cousin, who was our bartender that night at the b-side lounge.

all of that is purposely confusing, and entirely true.

i should probably move.

but. i pass this old man and his caretaker.

a stout, curly-haired woman with a paper bag passes on the sidewalk at the same time as me and calls out to them,

-hello. i’ve just picked up my dinner. i’m starving. how are you?

and the caretaker responds,

-good, good. nice day out, finally.
-yeah, finally.

the curly-haired woman waves and keeps moving. she says,

-well i’m going home.
-okay. enjoy your dinner.

my landlord’s father asks his caretaker, creakily,

-where is she going?
and his caretaker answers:
-she’s going home.
-going home?
-yeah, she’s going home, she’s going to bed.

and i find it very odd that she has told him this, as it’s only about six in the evening, and the woman is most likely not going to bed.

but the old man says,
-oh. she’s going to bed?
-yeah.
-well. where am i going?

and the caretaker answers:
-the front porch.

i keep walking. i climb my steps, open my door, and turn on all my lamps.



***


a ridiculous character.

lamps. glasses. dishes and cigarette boxes. i like mountains and hunting and fishing. i like john cheever.

i am the exile who still gets magazines from back home.

(-she took out four twenties 'cause she liked round figures.)

i would like a room of spun sugar objects

what i need is a western shirt and some western pants

all green and red and silver.



***



i’m on the boat with joshua’s dad. joshua calls to us from where he is swimming (probably because his dad and i aren’t really speaking, we’re just keeping track of all of them there in the salt water, far from shore, gasping. we are trying to make sure none of them drown). i am keeping an eye on my brother, who is swimming the hour swim to shore because he can’t pass anything up, ever. and i admire this. joshua, who i really don’t know at all, calls to his dad:

-ellen’s taking an ornithography course!

and his dad stares at me quizzically. he asks,

-ornithography?

from under his mustache.

and i say,
-he means ornithology. he keeps getting confused.
-so that’s...

(he revs the engine, and the boat turns. i sway back a little in my salt-soaked black dress)

-...birds, right?
-yeah.
-so tell me. why are there so many cormorants around here nowadays? we never used to see cormorants. now they’re everywhere.
-i don’t know,

i say, and he revs the engine again. i say,

-something about your fisheries must’ve changed.

and this is to say, well, i have no idea mr miner. i have no idea at all.

but i like cormorants. because cormorants are diving birds their feathers are incredibly absorbent— their feathers are basically a built-in diving belt, a built-in diving jacket. when they hit the water they immediately become much less buoyant. this way they’re able to stay underwater longer to fish. as a result, though, cormorants have to dry their wings after every dive in order to be able to fly. this is why you see cormorants striking that dramatic, sunning pose so often.

where they are spread-eagle, like this:

---- (head)

---------- (wings)-----------

[ ] (legs)
--------- (tail)



i say none of this.

-there’s your sunfish, joshua.

mr miner calls, and points at a fin sticking out of the water about twenty feet away.



***


i watch a man with a gray blazer slung over his shoulder walking a black dog under the magnolias near boston common.

in a hat shop, i hear a kid say to his little brother,

-don’t try that one on. that’s a ladies’ hat for when somebody dies.

and after they leave i take the mourning hat to a mirror and place it on my head at a jaunty angle.


***


when my coffee shop sells (“my” coffee shop), the kids who work there are in mourning, all of us— we are like children of divorce or death, we stick close together, though we have previously mostly fought, teased, and tried to kill one another. garrett, my manager, is in the corner by the window looking down at a scone recipe, i am in another corner cleaning up the oil i have spilled everywhere, we are both tense with the presence of the new owner, the presence of a total stranger in a place that has come to feel like home, and his dad, the previous owner of the shop, rounds the corner into the kitchen. he passes me and i grin at him. he gives me a little wave and moves on toward the window. he stands still behind his son, and when garrett turns around and sees him, there in his civilian blazer, he is so surprised and pleased that he cries out, “hey!” and taps tim’s shirt with the back of his hand. this is a jocular, genuinely happy gesture, so pleasing in its giddy simplicity. i think of the phrase hail-fellow-well-met and understand it. something about it makes me flush, red and happy.

when i go home, i try to recapture it, i try to mimic that gesture with my own hands. i practice this movement over and over again.



***


on the train we pass skunk cabbage and lady slippers, we pass puddingstone and salamanders under rocks. stone walls, there because early on in new england history people had to clear their fields of that glacial detritus in order to grow anything.

i see ospreys in their nests, on the ground near the water, flapping haphazardly above salt lakes. i see red-winged blackbirds in the cattails, in the thick of their everyday territory wars. there is salvation in the naming and counting of things, and i name and count everything i can. egrets. deer. nests made of sticks. trees. cars. gravestones. i think of how those nest sticks must feel to the baby ospreys. i think of those nest sticks as opposed to eiderdown. i think about the word "eiderdown" and say it out loud to myself as the train shudders and rockets along.



***



do this.
how to ragout a goose.


there was that awkward day at the shop when all of us kept whistling.


this is that close work you’ve been talking about.


-stacks of records, dust, swords, and...

he turns to me,

-...guns.


you tap the keys and play this musical armor, those pleasing little metal buttons, that pleasing little tap tap tap.

that tap tap tap of birds’ feet

as i walk along the river, i imagine a man shaving

and decide:
there has been some kind of mistake. and he is returned to us, straight-backed, strong, a young man, he walks with us miles and miles. that gold wire is in sight, that most beautiful object is in sight. that love object, the platonic ideal of a magnifying glass.



.

a line of scowling young men who smell vaguely of leaves and dirt

that pretty much says it

i whip through a snowy countryside, past woods, past pools of dark, frozen black water at the bases of tree trunks.

you'll cry when you take your first steps. you'll cry and cry.

you will always be fascinated by maps, but you will have no talent for geography.

you're kidnapped and i'm lonely.

i get up in the morning, get passably dressed, and begin my morning commute to nowhere.

there are no words, there are no seats. i pass a tree laden down with frozen fruit. i say the word "laden" outloud to myself.

there is: an overwhelming desire for gold food. there is: the brown and white cat that appears and trots alongside me on the bridge over the train tracks.

we are those finicky children, those days of no proportion.

we ride in the handsome cab with the red blankets over our legs. scratchy red felt. the horse's feet clomp along the pavement. the cars pass hhhssssshhhh and someone hums tunelessly. headlights sweep past those hard-knuckled frayed knees. our horse is spotted. he clomps, clomps, clomps.

we are thick metal inlays in a mosaic map. everything unwinds around us like a coil.

.

oh, nonsense.

.

as she went out the door she turned to the monster and said, as an afterthought,

-well, i’ll watch out for you, i suppose.

he replied,

-but there will be no place to watch out for me, my dear.

his eyes flashed. he spread his claws wide and added,

-whoooooosh.




she stared. and said

-well. alright.

and closed the door behind her.


.


kovrin wanders through the brambles of the garden, towering over those child-sized spaces in his tattered woolen suit. he brushes the back of his hand on the trunks and leaves of the pepper trees and oleander as he passes. he stops by a small stone fountain filled with lily pads and tiny fish. something thunders past in the bushes behind him and he startles. he turns to look, and the branches and leaves are still quivering.


.


from the plane the bodies of water below are all molten silver—giant railroad tracks, vast puddles of melted metal. rain evaporates as it hits that hot surface. the fog sweeps up. everything is swathed in green or pulled white cloth.

there are bridges, rivers, snowfields, deserts, roads. sometimes all at once, all intersecting, microscopic.

from up here the horizon is 232.66 miles away.


here’s a sharp ridge covered in snow for you. here’s a little volcano. here you go. take it, put it in your pocket.

count out hours and people and animals and put them in a little snuff box trimmed with gold paper and black lacquer. put it in your pocket, take it home.

-oh no, I couldn’t possibly.
-TAKE IT HOME.

there is no such thing as physical immortality. even if death is taken out of the mix, if you lived long enough your likelihood of physical accident, of total obliteration, would increase exponentially. the longer you live, the more and more likely you are to get hit by a meteor, wiped out by an avalanche, totally emulated in a fire. utterly destroyed, utterly blown to bits and powder. you wouldn’t last beyond 10,000 years, even if you could "live forever."

look around, even the landscape itself isn't all that old, comparatively speaking. on a long enough timeline, physical destruction is an absolute certainty.

that’s actually sort of reassuring. 10,000 years? pah, that’s hardly even worth it.

.

i can't help but laugh. it's all so goddamn absurd. the exquisite cruelty. he holds up his hand, places his index finger and thumb together and describes my ability for drawing proportions. in my family, we use our hands to talk.

he retells the story as,

-lord, you know that's too goddamn much salt,

when the line has always been, in the past,

-lord, you know that's too much pepper.

owen wraps mythic creatures in toxic foam so that they don't break, jess calls from where she is driving through baton rouge, i pace around in california in bare feet and wonder what's wrong with me as i pour my umpteenth glass of wine of the night. the dogs bark, bark, bark. our exquisite little turtle sits in a box in the wayback, near the toy teaset and the water-stained portrait of some dead author.


these are real men, doing real things.


i lie on top of the red covers back in cambridge. the blinds are all open next to me, and it's snowing outside. i am playing invalid, reading old magazines and going through my entire record collection. it's blizzarding. throughout the day, people come out of their houses in giant parkas and stocking hats and shovel while the snow falls around them. i can watch them from here. i don't have to go out in that mess, as i have no car to extricate. i look out at the house across the street, at the driveway where i can see through to the backyard. in the summertime i used to watch these people's dog wander around out there, dragging branches, stripping bark. now, during the blizzard, i am strangely sick, unable to breathe, i have just enough groceries to last me the day, which i am spending fully clothed-and-lighted but barefoot on top these covers. out in that backyard, i see a little figure through the snow. i lean closer to the window. i can't tell if it's a person or not. it's strange-looking, small. is that a kid? then it moves. it is a kid, a girl about age six, out in her snowsuit and jacket and hat. she's buried herself up to her waist in snow. and she just sits there as the snow falls around her, occasionally patting flat the snow on top of her legs with her mittens. as i watch, the dog trudges over to her in the snow, and she pushes it away. it wags its tail. and they are both exquisitely happy.

.

down the garden path.

i sit in the plough and stars and have a bowl of soup and a bloody mary. the bartender is irish. large and sincere. i enjoy him. no one is large and sincere any more. it's a terrible shame.

since i'm sitting in an irish pub and the book i'm currently reading is by an irish author, i have to read my back-up book, which is by a russian author.

one should not read irish books in irish pubs. it's beyond embarrassing and it effects the meal.


.

always foolishly disappointed. there is too much owed. the snow in new england never melts.

the charles river kind of freezes, but i still wouldn't walk on it.


i am back to feeling aimless, atoms drifting from my shoulders and back. i kick my legs out at night, throw my arms out at night. i kick and throw. i dream that i'm still young. i'm running away from home, into the woods behind our house. dan, the big yellow dog, is still alive, and i have no concept of non-familial love.

the covers are tangled in the morning.

here in massachusetts, the morning is open and cold. you can't see anything here. there are no mountains, there is no big sky. the sky is steel-gray, low, suffocating. the landscape doesn't want us here.

i hear school children outside my house, a full story below me. the day-to-day lives of children fascinate me and make me mildly glad.

a woman and her three-year old come into the shop in the morning and the woman tells me, after i ring her up,

-i was dressing this morning, and she came in and all she said was, "corn muffin."




maybe this is how it should be. the rough brick edges of buildings suddenly appearing. in the sky above porter square, the pigeons wheel and wheel around and then alight on an office building. some of them don't land and keep going round and round. minutes later, the ones who did land sweep up into the sky again and join them.

that regular give-and-take with the world, that constant talk, talk, talk. everything welcomes me back, it calls me by name and overwhelms me. it says:

look, look--

that little boy is walking with his mother and saying YAYAYAYAYA over and over again, that bird is trying to eat a muffin wrapper, that old man is going to visit his youngest daughter in toronto in three days, his name is charles, that plastic bag once held a carton of milk and a package of peanut butter crackers, that pigeon has had fifteen children, ten of them survived, that napkin never cleaned anything, that guy once had a eyebrow ring but he took it out when he was 24, that tree was pruned a year ago today and hasn't been since, that man woke up at one in the afternoon today and then watched five minutes of telemundo. one of the actresses reminded him of his ex-girlfriend, who was named kate and did social work, that pothole has broken seventeen car axels, that leaf was stepped on by a little girl named johanna (it went "crik') whose mother corrected her that afternoon when she asked for a glass of water: "it's MAY i have some water, johanna, not CAN i have some water" and that night, she dreamed about easter grass.


and on and on and on.

.

find me plastered on the sides of buildings, plastered on billboards with a phone number underneath, my mouth slightly open, looking ridiculous and dazed.

i am milk and mutes, i'm a swooning faint in a cold front yard, i'm that "special time you spend with your loved ones during the holidays," i'm the tramp you pick up in the rain who doesn't stab you, i'm your mother, i'm yep, nope, okay, dear, and occasionally alright. i'm all that, and a broken teapot to boot.

so. let's have a look at you, then.


crows can't be anything but black. unless they're albino... then they're white with red eyes.

i'm slicing tomatoes, as i do on many mornings, and daydreaming about awful work-related injuries (it keeps me focused). the slicer is humming, warm, metallic. i work with it like some dear, sharp-toothed beast of burden. i treat it with a lot of affection. it's alive to me, it's an animal that won't hurt me so long as i don't stop paying close attention to it.

i get paid minimum.

it's six in the morning, freezing. the radio is on. the heat is barely on. i'm singing quietly to myself, and the slicer is going "shhuuut, shhuuut, shhuuut."

an old woman who often comes in on mornings when i open the shop walks in the door. the door clacks- "cht-ttt." this sound lets us know someone has arrived. i sometimes think i hear this sound when i'm not at work. cht-ttt, and i come to attention, no matter where i am, because that sound means that someone, somewhere, is hungry, and wants me to feed them. quickly.

she sits and reads the sunday paper. she's in a shawl, a long coat, and rubber boots. she sits and tears out coupons. she and the shop owner talk about quiche. she has the sort of accent american women did in movies in the twenties. a careful accent, almost british but also distinctly american. the sort of accent adopted by people who grew up in the middle of nowhere who don't want to sound like they grew up in the middle of nowhere. this is the way girls were raised to speak in the early to mid 20th century. i find it very soothing and kind of confusing.

she says,

-the sweet potato and kale quiche you gave me last week was really lovely, tim.

and tim says,

-did you like that? they're in season now.

and i think, the quiche, the kale, or the sweet potato?

the slicer falters,

shu'chh-SHH.

and i realize i'm getting distracted and am in danger of cutting off my hand. so i focus on my slicing again.


.

Harold Pinter's “The Birthday Party”


LULU: Oh, hullo.

STANLEY: Ay-ay.

LULU: I just want to leave this in here.

STANLEY: Do. (LULU crosses to the sideboard and puts a solid, round parcel upon it.) That’s a bulky object.

LULU: You’re not to touch it.

STANLEY: Why would I want to touch it?

LULU: Well, you’re not to, anyway.

LULU walks upstage.

LULU: Why don’t you open the door? It’s all stuffy in here.

She opens the back door.

STANLEY (rising): Stuffy? I disinfected the place this morning.

LULU (at the door): Oh, that’s better.

STANLEY: I think it’s going to rain today. What do you think?

LULU: I hope so. You could do with it.

STANLEY: Me! I was in the ocean at half past six.

LULU: Were you?

STANLEY: I went right out to the headland and back before breakfast. Don’t you believe me!

She sits, takes out a compact and powders her nose.

LULU (offering him the compact): Do you want to have a look at your face? (STANLEY withdraws from the table.) You could do with a shave, do you know that? (STANLEY sits, right at the table.) Don’t you ever go out? (He does not answer.) I mean, what do you do, just sit around the house like this all day long? (Pause.) Hasn’t Mrs Boles got enough to do without having you under her feet all day long?

STANLEY: I always stand on the table when she sweeps the floor.

LULU: Why don’t you have a wash? You look terrible.

STANLEY: A wash wouldn’t make any difference.

LULU (rising): Come out and get a bit of air. You depress me, looking like that.

STANLEY: Air? Oh, I don’t know about that.

LULU: It’s lovely out. And I’ve got a few sandwiches.

STANLEY: What sort of sandwiches?

LULU: Cheese.

STANLEY: I’m a big eater, you know.

LULU: That’s all right. I’m not hungry.

STANLEY (abruptly): How would you like to go away with me?

LULU: Where.

STANLEY: Nowhere. Still, we could go.

LULU: But where could we go?

STANLEY: Nowhere. There’s nowhere to go. So we could just go. It wouldn’t matter.

LULU: We might as well just stay here.

STANLEY: No. It’s no good here.

LULU: Well, where else is there?

STANLEY: Nowhere.

LULU: Well, that’s a charming proposal. (He gets up.) Do you have to wear those glasses?

STANLEY: Yes.

LULU: So you’re not coming out for a walk?

STANLEY: I can’t at the moment.

LULU: You’re a bit of a washout, aren’t you?

She exits, left. STANLEY stands. He then goes to the mirror and looks in it. He goes into the kitchen, takes off his glasses and begins to wash his face.



.

-are you ready, desperado?
-always ready.

.

a music box chimes and he says,

-there is no way in hell i am listening to this.

so i wipe the flour off my hands, walk over to the stereo and change the track, thinking,

-what an asshole...

.

everything a hopeful monster.

the tortoise slides back and forth on the tipping wooden floor of the ship. he is the size of a soup pot, nails smooth, the color of ivory.

i stole that entire line. from two different people.


we're in bird masks and our mother bursts into tears for some reason. unrecognizable loved ones are distressing.


alone in my house, i'm looking for a book on the shelf by the door. i'm singing, really belting it out, though i can't sing to save my own life, and i hear my neighbors clonk up the stairs. i know they can hear me. they even pause outside my door. but i keep singing. i feel a bit foolish, but, frankly, it would be more embarassing to stop now, wouldn't it? so i keep singing.

-it took me SOOOOO LOONG to FIND OUT....and i FOOUND OUT...




it was embarassing.

.

i feel endlessly old.


.

-PLAY IT to me.. PLAY IT to me hollywood blues.


.

weakened, foolish, clad in leather boots, she lays a tripwire in the basement under a heap of cardboard boxes.

she waits behind the water heater for him to stumble upon it. and when he does, he hurts his leg. badly. but he doesn’t make a sound. he closes his eyes in total silence, stills his face as if he can see her watching and can’t bear to give her the satisfaction.

but she isn’t satisfied. far from it. and she cries out in terrible pain before he does.

-oh jesus! sweetheart, what did you do??

.

i tear myself up, blow the pieces onto a large piece of butcher paper, and paste myself where i land.

i am a very capable person.


the girl juggles her options for the night and then winds up doing absolutely nothing.

or rather, she juggles her options for the night and then winds up wandering around in the freezing cold and early dark, going to forest cafe, and THEN doing absolutely nothing.

but 0+0 always equals....

sometimes this sort of thing works, and sometimes it doesn't. on this particular night, it doesn't really work. it does, but it doesn't.

it does. it doesn't.

and sometimes i refer to myself in the third person.



freezing cold and very, very slowly thawing out, i sit alone at a side table at forest cafe, there against the fake wood barrier between the restaurant and the bar. this barrier used to divide the restaurant into smoking and nonsmoking sections. that is no longer its purpose. the barrier no longer really serves any purpose-- it provides no privacy-- the drunks at the bar still lean their arms over the partition so that they're basically hanging over my drink and dinner all night. i'm close to scraping someone's hand with my fork. three old, balding men hang over me and talk about hair pieces. one of them says, in a thick-slurring boston accent,

-no, look, you know, as long as i can pah't it, i'm happy. as long as i have enough haya-ta pah't, i'm happy.

and so am i.

my family used to come to here when i was a little kid. it's exactly the same as it's always been. mexican food, highly gringofied, slightly terrible but weirdly passable, like mexican night at a nice polish family's house. the staff leaves me alone. they are friendly and prompt and don't cock their eyebrows at me, there, sitting alone over a book and cell phone and drink after drink after drink. so it works. and every now and then i come here and sit and drink and eat something and read and eavesdrop. on this night, a woman near me tells her friend a story about her husband:

-so you know that candy, altoids?
-yeah.
-well he loves them. he hasn't really got a sweet tooth, it's more of a... sour tooth, y'know?
-yeah, i have that too.
-so altoids, for a little while, was making these lemon ones.
-yeah?
-and he loved them, i mean, he would go through a couple tins a week. they have these circular metal tins.

(she curves her index finger and thumb into the shape of an altoid tin)

-yeah, yeah.
-but then they stopped making the lemon ones.
-oh.
-but then i was at costco around christmas time... i was buying candy for the kids' stockings... and i found a big tin of these lemon altoids all tucked away on the back of a shelf.
-ha!
-so now every christmas i put three or four in his stocking, and he LOVES them. it's only three or four from this big tin i have. but to him it's like HEAVEN.
-what are you going to do when you start to run out?
-i don't know. he'll be heartbroken. i guess i'll start giving him ONE every christmas.



my waitress is fine. she leaves me alone. but at the end of dinner she brings me my check and says,

-say, didn't you used to work in a movie theater around here?
-uhh... no..
-yeah, you used to come in here all the time with this short girl. you used to work in a movie theater. didn't you have a really short red-haired friend you used to come in with?

.

comment:

this is always amazing to me.

first of all, it is amazing to me when people mistake me for others, because i have a lot of difficulty believing there are many people out there who actually look that much like me. maybe that's just some kind of weird delusion on my part. but i have never met someone who could actually be confused with me other than... i don't know... my sister...? maybe..? and maybe a cousin or two...? maybe..? i don't know..

really? i have dopplegangers? where are they, and what the hell are they doing with themselves? who are they hanging out with? can i meet their friends? shouldn't they be my friends by proxy? they do have a type, apparently.

the best exchange i've ever had involving confused identity was at espresso roma, back in boulder, about a year ago. the barista girl said as she was ringing me up,

-hey, you used to work at the southern sun, didn't you?
-uhh... no..

(for some reason i always have to think about it. i'd never been employed before a few months ago. but there's still this little part of me that asks 'wait, DID i work at the southern sun..?')

the espresso roma girl continued,

-yeah, you did work there! or you went there a lot. i know you from the southern sun. i totally do.
-i don't.....think so..... the closest i've ever been to the southern sun was the parking lot. i've never actually even been inside the southern sun.
-no, i know you! you were dating a pilot at the time! weren't you dating a pilot?

(did i date i pilot?)

-yes. that was me.

the second thing that confuses me about this sort of exchange is this: once you've confused someone for someone else, and established that they are not in fact that person, what's the point of continuing to talk about it? people always try to convince me that i am in fact the person they're thinking of, to the point where i myself actually almost start to believe it.


.


back at the forest cafe, the girl is still trying to convince me that i once worked in a movie theater and came into the bar a lot with a short girl.

i shake my head. and say i'm sorry. and for some reason, i am sorry.


the busboy is new, and barely speaks english. i've seen him twice since he started working here a few weeks ago. he's still hopelessly lost. tonight, he is wearing the same city sports t-shirt he was wearing the last time i saw him. i look down and realize that i'm wearing the same top i was wearing the last time i was here. it's a work top that's too nice to work in, but fuckall, even with a paltry wardrobe i've got standards. it's still covered in flour. i'm still covered in flour. i used to work in a movie theater. i was dating a pilot at the time.


.

here's a placemarker for tomorrow.

.

-is he alright?
-well, i think he has no arms.
-they couldn't reattach them?
-i don't know.
-i thought they reattached them.
-but how would he get the arms into the car?
-look, any guy who can drive himself to the hospital using his mouth can probably get it together enough to take a couple arms, wrap them up in some newspaper..


.

-jesus. these pirates are monsters.
-well, yeah, but remember i shot one of their guys in the neck last week and killed him, so. i think we're okay too.

.


he licks his teeth, once, with great purpose, (-smack-), and says

-i am i am i am i am i am.

and i say,

-you really are.





you are?





a broken something.

we drink because we’re thirsty.





in the dream, i make breakfast for someone else’s children. the lawn outside is wet, the hill probably leads down to a cow or two, maybe some goats, maybe someone’s drunk, soaked, violent brother who’s hiding in the empty barn. in the kitchen, little mortimer the third eats plenty of hot buttered toast, and there’s milk at will for everyone. something buzzes warmly, but it’s still pilgrim-slaying cold by the windows and the door (it’s an old, drafty house) so we stay away from these glass openings except on occasion, when we go back to fill our mugs up again. we have to leave the coffee pot on the warmer, after all, and the only plug is right under the goddamn freezing windowsill.

.

in reality, i’m alone at the bookstore, and the woman in line behind me is extremely rude to me. cruel, even. in response to this, i start laughing uncontrollably. she looks alarmed, germanic. my shoulders are still shaking with it when i get up to the counter and say hi to the shopgirl. this has been happening lately—i’m overcome and i start laughing hysterically. it’s a little troubling, frankly. at the shop the other day i started laughing like this and actually said to a coworker who’d been harassing me all day,

-what the HELL are you TALKING about?

and then i turned away, still laughing, and resumed windexing the cooler doors. her face fell, possibly embarrassed, possibly frightened. i was not intending to be mean to her. and i really don’t think i was. i didn’t feel any real animosity towards her in that moment…. it was just… funny…

and squeak squeak squeak went the glass under the rag.

in those tattered, sad house dresses, i want to take them by the shoulders and shake them heartily, slap them, shout and dredge something out of that sorry sweet little arrogance. because i’m fond, sincerely, (insanely), but i really just want to say, firmly,

this is all you’ve got, this little sad thing is all you’ve got. time is not your friend.


.

i'm a lonely soldier.

every once in a great while i am overwhelmed with a day-long wave of totally blind, smothering fondness. but there's no one here to throw my arms around-- i'm alone, almost entirely, almost all of the time. so i kiss the lead-paint doorfacing and wander out in the morning, vaguely buzzing. i see a woman and her four-year old on the playground. i know them from the shop. the woman waves (it takes her a moment, she doesn't recognize me without a black apron on, apparently) and i wave back. the little girl stares.

i see a squirrel running up a driveway with an entire piece of toast in his mouth. i see an abandoned pair of workgloves on the sidewalk. i buy coffee and throw the paltry change into the tip cup. i see a dead pigeon and a dead rat within the same two blocks. i catch the hanta virus.

i climb into blasting headphones, cross my arms tightly, and that warm swirling settles down into a more bearable, dark little thud in my chest. a steeplechase thud.

and then i can get on with my day.

i suppose it's that weirdly buzzing, mildly glad feeling that makes some people pray. CS lewis said that it's not enough to simply pray by existing-- that it angers god for you to assume that he knows how you're feeling about the whole existence thing. he said that's not enough-- that you have to actively get down on your knees and pray. otherwise it doesn't count. that little feeling of effortless grace doesn't cut it.

CS lewis was an asshole.

but he's dead, and i'm not.

so i win.

.

i think i'm in love with this guy: http://www.nytimes.com/2007/10/28/magazine/28wwln-Q4-t.html

and hell, i'll just post it:

Questions for Pierre Bayard
"My Reader, My Double"
Interview by DEBORAH SOLOMON
Published: New York Times: October 28, 2007

Q: As a professor of French literature at the University of Paris, you’re offering rather subversive advice in your 12th book, “How to Talk About Books You Haven’t Read,” which is about to be published in this country. Do you think it will fare as well here as it has done in Europe?

A; I have no idea. It was a best seller in France. People bought it without reading it — they followed my advice. It was a best seller in Germany, too, because there are many nonreaders in Germany, and they want to see their rights defended.

Q: Naturally, I read your book in preparation for this interview. Do you think I made a mistake in doing so? What do you mean when you say, “I read it”?

A: One of the purposes of my book is to show that it is not so easy to say that you have read a book.

Q: What’s wrong with the traditional method of starting a book on the first page and reading through to the end?

A: It’s important to know how to read from the first line to the last line, but there are also other ways of reading. You can skim books, you can just have heard about them, you can have read them and forgotten them.

Q: You write in your book about Montaigne, who confessed to having a poor memory and to forgetting about books he himself had written. Which leads you to ask: If we read a book and forget that we read it, is that the same as never having read it?

A: I think between reading and nonreading there is an indeterminate space that is quite important, a space where you have books you have skimmed, books you have heard about and books you have forgotten. You don’t have to feel guilty about it.

Q: But what about those of us who read to feel things — to experience pleasure, an end to loneliness?

A: Of course I read in order to feel something. And to feel an end to my loneliness, of course, just as you.

Q: Then why are you so willing to devalue the experience of close reading in favor of skimming? You seem to believe that knowing a little bit about 100 literary classics is preferable to knowing one book intimately.

A: I think a great reader is able to read from the first line to the last line; if you want to do that with some books, it’s necessary to skim other books. If you want to fall in love with someone, it’s necessary to meet many people. You see what I mean?

Q: You suggest in your book that schools destroy a love of literature, in part because they don’t allow skimming.

A: Yes. Sometimes I help my son write book reports. Guillaume — he’s 14. It’s terrible. The questions are so specific about the names of characters, dates and towns where the heroes went that I am unable to answer the questions. It is the model of reading in France. A kind of scientific reading, which prevents people from inventing another kind of reading, which should be a form of wandering, as in a garden.

Q: Wouldn’t your son be better off if you let him do his homework by himself?

A: He thinks he wastes his time with book reports, and I agree with him.

Q: Have you read all of Proust, on whom you once wrote a scholarly book, “Off the Subject: Proust and Digression”?

A: Proust is very difficult to read. His sentences are long and have very strange constructions, so it is not very possible to read it from the first line to the last line. You are obliged to use another way of reading.

Q: Are you saying you skimmed Proust?

A: Yes, of course I did! I prefer to say that I live with Proust. He’s a companion. Sometimes I go to Proust and I seek advice for my life. I open it and I skim some pages. That is to live with books. It’s important to live with books.

Q: But if you’re a habitual skimmer, why should we trust the conclusions you draw about literature?

A: Because now, after hearing my arguments, you are convinced of my position.

Q: Not completely convinced.

A: Then you have to read my book once more, from the first line to the last line, the French method of reading.


.

i sit at a littered table for hours at a time, flipping through some random book and not really reading it.

then i decide that the music is too loud, so i turn it down.

and that's the evening.

.

i sit on the steps of a church and talk on the phone. a woman with a baby in a stroller comes over and stands uncomfortably close to me, not really doing anything, just standing there. i look at her. she smiles. stands there. does nothing. the baby sits there. does nothing. i sit for another minute to see if they want to talk to me. but the woman doesn't say anything. so with an apologetic look i get up and walk very slowly away. they continue to stand there as i walk away. the baby watches me leave silently. she actually turns her head as i go.

this is what most of my interactions with other people are like.

.

at the shop, a man comes in and stands there while we all smile at him from over the counter. after a long minute, during which he's just been staring at me (waiting there with a notepad and pen in hand to take his order, and smiling benignly and, i think, invitingly) i finally ask,

-so....can i help you?

and he says,

-yes. i would like to order a SANDWICH.

in a strange, loud way.

and i say




okay,


what can i.....get you?

.


i can't get away with anything anymore.


the moon moves from one glass corner of my apartment to the other. and i see the moon and the moon sees me.


or something like that. i don't even fucking know anymore.


.

life and distance are funny things.

.

there is nothing so satisfying as the basic ability to play the piano. not with any sort of talent-- nothing beyond a basic competence--just a basic competence. with the piano. that's satisfying.

a dull mirrored surface.

watching a homeless guy and a street preacher arguing, she walks smack into a telephone pole.

-ow....motherf..

a plastic henry VIII. the habit of holding your shoulder up, strangely cocked, just like your grandfather did when he was a kid. sore and blind from bright lights.

i have been told, on many occasions, that i need to develop some kind of filter, some kind of netting, but as you can see, i've ignored that advice happily.

.

a travesty of riches.

when he says no one, he means no one.

a small, round metal box that seals far too well, that holds jewelry she can no longer in good conscience wear.

everything turns off at the same time that it all turns warm and giddy and alive. on the train, sad little towns, ugly plastic yard-toys and fifteen different graveyards fly by, and she realizes that death actually exists. there are bridges and rivers and marshes. there are men and children and birds. there are animals that spend their whole lives trying to find something to eat and someone to procreate with. and that's what's really going on, with no real nuance to it.

there's all sorts of damage possible. but it doesn't really matter. there are still pocket watches. there is still numismatics. which isn't terribly interesting to me.

but still.

we run through the warehouse because we are terrified of something.

i’m chasing you through a house deluged with flowers. i'm happy doing this. but there’s a man with just one leg blocking me on the stairs. and you get away. outside, the waves wash over the dock. the whole building will be under water in a matter of minutes. there’s some kind of statuary, some kind of garden, some kind of twinkling light. i give up on catching you. i sit at the bar alone and get a drink. i think that we are in some kind of limbo, and we are.

there are birds on the roof of a car dealership that sing quietly to themselves, aware that everything was made entirely for them.


there's all of that, and there's being young at this very moment.


and. well. how fucking funny.

.

and everything goes south. but it's warm there, and covered in kudzu and rusting cars and huge lovely houses, so it's really not the end of the world. or maybe it is, i don't know. maybe it is the end of the world and we can just wear t-shirts and sandals and go crabbing. right at the end of the world.

there is: the sweet-sounding but incredibly vulgar song that winds up saving your life.

there is: the best way to tear down a barn: cut a 12" hole in the roof and wait.

i spill an entire metal bucket of iced coffee down the front of my shirt. i work for another six hours with this huge wet splotch that just won't dry. i soak the shirt in my sink later. watch the coffee drift off of it into the water like some boring kind of blood. the plug in my sink (which i apparently had never closed before) seals shut, is stuck in that position. i use the handle of a teaspoon to keep it propped open from then on. i stare at the spoon every time i brush my teeth.

she steals his middle name, does terrible things to it, paints it ugly colors, sews feathers and buttons on it, and then hides it in her closet. she feels bad about it, but it's beyond help and she can't bring herself to throw it out.

he says,

-he looks like bonnie prince billy, doesn't he?

and i say,

-yeah, jesus, i was just thinking that. it's not him, though.
-no, it's not him.

and then i leave.

.

he seems crazed at the kitchen table- exhausted, unshaven, gesturing oddly. the walk was cold, and he is somehow still emanating chilled air. i watch him talk. everything he says is pleasantly fanged and confusing.

but how can something be "pleasantly fanged"?

in the night, it comes back around and bites me on the shoulder.

-when you don't have them they hate you because you won't; and when you do then they hate you again, for some other reason.

some homeopathic recipe for disaster. grocery store employees. a birthday party mass.

-eyes that had been drowned in fathomless disillusion... he seemed so old... endlessly old, built up of layers of disillusion, going down in him generation after generation, like geological strata; and at the same time he was forlorn like a child.

and worried like a woman. but i can forgive you for being so precious.

.

i see a portly, shirtless gardener cooling himself off with his leafblower, which he has propped up on the truckbed.

.

in a room with countless small children whose faces resemble those of their fathers (so that said fathers don't eat said children) the animal waits for relief.

"i never", he says, "have any time for myself anymore."

.

she swung a loaf of bread out the window on a rope. the kids below laughed at her and said, throwing gravel up into her face,

-your bread is always stale and crumbling. and we don't want your damn lilies, either.

.


yeah... i know.

.

-go gold and come back when you're done.

.

he brushes something from the back of his left hand with the fingers of his right hand and the night’s over.

.

she brought me up to the treehouse and showed me the mouse her cat had caught. it was tiny, quivering, sad.

-i’ve been feeding it peanut butter,

she said.

i don’t remember what happened to it after that. but i can’t imagine it was very good.

.

we had the ice queen locked in my bucket. we left her in the woods by the birch tree where we dumped the old soaked firewood and dog shit. we assumed she had died but also assumed she’d be back the next winter.

it was a cliffhanger.

i don’t think she ever came back, but

watch your back.

we are too familiar, i dream of the ends of your fingers cut off, of imprisonment, of some faint, strange sound in the night by the ocean.

once i dreamed of fish heads lining the woods.

that was an awful dream.

i see an american bittern from the train. he wades through the marsh as we pass. clacking.



so. i have an odd feeling about this.

this weekend i was convinced i was going to drown. there was so much water. tides and boats and buoys and drinking. hot fucking sun. dogs. people i didn’t know. disappearances.

it was a little terrible. but interesting.

i hadn’t been in the ocean since i was about fifteen. when my brother called and said he and neely were heading up that night and that i should be ready to go to gloucester at midnight i ran out and bought a swimsuit in a bag and a black dress to wear over it. did the 19th century thing and swam in a dress.

of all things.

cold, cold water.

.

he makes a great collection entirely based on theft.

a whole new system of classification, one built on purpose, rather than genetics. what the hell did shakespeare have to do with his father? so what does the stork have to do with the falcon? it’s what they do that’s interesting, not where they came from.

right?

.

wakes up naked, thoroughly naked.

my god.

the dogs run against the mistaken safety of the cliff. wishing they could fall in love the way they did when they were young.

the basic, moaning suggestion of a world. nothing more.

sunburnt, made of string and thick cloth, stuffed with horsehair.

someone’s overly quiet mother.

-are you going to say anything, ever?

he says in a baseball cap.

and no. i’m just going to quietly get old. get quietly old. all of a sudden. because i can’t. the way i could when i was nineteen.

a wine with a stupid, simple, floppy taste.

in the night, she wanders to the sink, opens the cabinet, pulls out the scissors, and sleepily cuts off all her hair.

he stands under powerlines in the morning, under a pair of shoes that are dangling by their laces.

after seven tries, he knocks them down with one of his own shoes. they fall to the ground. he tries them on. they don’t fit.

.

tell me it’s possible to better myself, then order oysters. order some scotch. ruin oysters for me, ruin scotch for me, ruin sleep for me permanently.

let me lie down the way i used to. dream for hours in the morning of the garden and of absence.

force me to take the shells home, even though i’d rather not carry them. say, “this is a nice one” and put it in my pocket without meeting my eyes.


.

-what’s it like to not want anything?
-terrible.
-what’s it like to be drunk?
-how drunk?
-really sauced.
-oh….it’s….wonderful. you feel important.


.

a very crowded place.


.

i say,

-i haven't gotten hysterical lately, at least.

and he pauses. says,

-but...
-what?
-don't lose sight of that.
-of what?
-don't lose sight of the....hysterics.



god forbid i lose sight of my hysterics.


.

i wonder how they can live with these narrow stairs. every time i go up or down them i imagine that they won’t be able to hold my weight—that the entire thing will come crashing down under me.

in the rain, a woman in a yellow plastic bag walks two dogs in jackets into her house.

smashing the doldrums.

horses.

stairs.

something pulling down.

some tin model.

that’s not what you want.

even when they're gone and the bedroom is available i still sleep downstairs, where i was meant to sleep. on the stage.

i was meant to sleep on the stage

.

i sink down before the end of it.

i can't breathe, i can't talk. i'm in deep, cold ocean water. all i can see or smell or taste is salt and black.

when i jump into the water, everything-- breath, voice, basic sense of self-- gets knocked out of me. it's incredibly cold. the others are out ahead of me. i'm the last of eleven to jump off the boat, and i sink five feet before forcing my way back up to the surface, sputtering. i don't open my eyes while i'm under, but i can still see dark green blue and hear this bizarre, terrified rushing. i'm under for what feels like a minute. freezing. wet. the others disappear, the boat disappears, i'm in the water. rushing 650 feet deep. i force myself back up, gasping, eyes stinging, lungs burning. and try to breathe, try to call for someone to wait for me. but they're all out ahead of me, clinging to the giant red metal buoy. some of them are similarly baffled-looking.

and this is how things happen.

we're an hour away from land, and they're swimming. they swim or float slowly, freezing. after dangling from the buoy for a few minutes i swim back to the boat and clamber back up. i can't handle it. i can feel how far down it goes beneath us. and i can't handle it. i can barely watch films of submarines without covering my eyes, so how am i supposed to be in the ocean that far out for that long without losing my mind. i watch the others as they swim slowly slowly toward the shore. from the boat, i keep track of all of them. there are five brown heads, two blonde heads, three black. they all start to look the same after awhile. i can't tell my brother from the others. and as we get closer to the lobster traps, it's hard to tell what's object and what's human.

.

i can't actually keep from laughing.

i am slightly autistic.

who needs a drink. birds look at us sideways. i am
constantly losing other people's dogs and children


dunes, i'm burned all to hell and wondering

how any of it actually happens

.

maybe “superstitious” is the word for it.

or “kestrel.” or “holy.”

or maybe the phrase “repeating arms” would cover it.

i don’t know.

what i do know is that i get nowhere in the rain.

there’s nothing like a healthy fascination with the normal life.

i spent all that money on a broken birdcage. all that money on a dead racehorse. on shoes for children. on a whistle, a bit of string.

and really. why?

i’m standing on the sidewalk, waiting for the light to change. and i hear a loud squalling pass,

-aaaaaaaAAAAAAAAaaaaa.

doppler.

fantastic.

.

kill you with a look.

-ju-das.
-what?
-i just said “judas.” it doesn’t mean anything.

holding onto a pole in the train i think of all those unbearable pauses and emphases.

holding onto this cat of a thing. this thing of a cat.

(that doesn’t mean anything.)

but i find myself strangely glad i’ve sort of left the world.


i sleepwalk occasionally now, since moving. i never did before. i do now. i wake up in front of the door at night, clutching the cold doorknob.

.

i hear some kids by the harbor:

-are you going to have a quinceañera?
a stout, downright-fat-if-we’re-going-to-be-honest-about-it girl asks a skinny one.
the skinny one nods. a boy near them leaps over the railing clumsily on his side. the stout girl asks him,
-are YOU? stupid. you stupid.

and i like the way she says “stupid.” there’s something oddly wholesome about it.


i see a pregnant woman, the type of hugely pregnant woman the rather disgusting phrase “heavy with child” was invented for on the subway with a cigarette tucked behind her ear.

so.

ju-das.

i see a dozen jellyfish in the harbor, clustered around a giant white plastic bag, mumbling to themselves.

.

i fall down my steps. i miss the last step, crumple into the wet lawn. it is early evening. i am not drunk. my phone goes sailing and splits in two.

later, i burn all hell out of my finger. it will scar, i can tell. i jam that same finger into the T ticket slot shortly afterwards. which is next to impossible to do, with the slot looking something like this: _____________________

so. i can hurt myself on just about anything. just watch.

.

weirdly feverish, i read about sideshow giants later that night:

“And notice the size of the hands—watch the hand please—and the size of the ring I have here, so large you can pass a silver half a dollar right through the center of the ring

Watch this, a silver half a dollar right through the giant lucky ring, believe it or not

Right through the center of the ring

Now each of these rings have my name and occupation engraved on them, and I’m going to pass them out now for souvenirs, and this is how I do it

I have here a little booklet, tells you all about our married life, has the life story, photographs of both of us and ten questions and answers pertaining to our married life and


Now all you care to know about us two is in this booklet
Now we sell the booklet for ten cents and for each and every booklet we give away one of these giant lucky rings
Now if you care to take home an interesting souvenir of the circus, hold up your dimes and I’ll be very glad to wait on you
Ten cents is all they are.”

and i go to sleep fearless and sad.

.

nothing to see here.

i spend my first night in cambridge watching “one flew over the cuckoo’s nest" in my hotel room. i watch it once from the middle. then i watch the entire thing again during the encore presentation.

i dream that i’m trapped in a canyon. i sleepwalk to the door of my room and then wake up.

the next night i watch nature shows. an english man says, 'fire and water ravage and renew, advance and retreat. but the waters are never defeated' and i believe him.

then i change the channel.

the hotel walls and adjoining doors are so thin that i can hear the man in the room next to me brushing his teeth. actually.

so this is cambridge. at least for the time being.

i sit by the river. i watch a seven-year old girl swearing at her mother in spanish. i buy a raymond carver book i think i might already own. i walk to my new apartment, get the keys, stand around inside my new living room. i eat alone. i buy a bottle of wine from c’est bon, even though i was really convinced that that was illegal on sundays in massachusetts after six.

then i go back to the hotel and watch the godfather on tv.

so.

wait for it… wait for it…

.

i'll be back soon. really.

.

i should be the kind of person who says

-don’t open this door no matter what you hear, no matter what i tell you

and then goes into the room where the beast waits. i’d be doomed, certainly. but. it would be a valiant effort, at least. and in the cartoon version it would make the kids laugh.

so, hey.



there’s hummingbird language, there are skeleton keys, crow invasions. there are ladders and boxes. seagulls hang over the bay in double-helix formation.

there are people out there who actually carry change purses. and decorate their rooms with a western theme.

.

i can make these meetings sound epic if i try. i can say,

there was a giant white hound i couldn’t get to leave. there was a rough plank of wood i fell asleep against. there was a plane with no pilot. there was a dinner party that everyone i had ever met and everyone i would ever meet attended.

i taught them the names of the constellations. i got some of them wrong, but they didn’t know the difference.

i kissed the doorfacing hard and then left.

time is short, and then suddenly you're not there any more.

.

enkidu loses his ability to run with the animals when he first falls in love. something in his legs goes out, is loosened. he’s tamed.

-doesn’t this feel like being dead?

.

i dream that i'm the bull. i can feel my shoulders fall apart like something made of sand.

.

ask,

-so what swims with you when you’re there in the water, with your sandbar and picnic disappeared, in something so terrifyingly named, “the hay canal?”

what do you suppose is down there under you? if pelicans are diving all around you? because life in water mimics life in air exactly.

and. how very frightening.

.

the little one

i draw and draw and draw and draw

bulls, bears, a dog, a man in a hat, a christmas tree.

you carry the scraps but i’m still ruined at night

taking photographs of my feet

because we all know there’s a level of grace missing.

the sort of grace that makes owen able to cook grandma’s crab bisque with nothing but a bowl, two forks, and a salt shaker. i don’t think he even had any crab on hand.

miracle.

.

there is:

the fact that boats exist.

the fact that i laugh uncontrollably when taken onto a beach.


there’s that.

.

he’s a bit of a joke, telling me, “you don’t have to do it quite like that,” and then suddenly pulling me across the wooden floor roman holiday style

unappealing, in a brusque way, less than romantic, less than heroic, by the arm, rough

but i suddenly find myself across the room. and i stare in amazement at the distance i just crossed without actually walking.





i'm the tyrant who was given a gracious reprieve from adulthood.

there is no sense of proportion, ever.

i ask,

are you alright, in the night, and he says, yes, i was just having trouble with the door.

.

this is how things get lost. we can't take anything as a compliment because we're being paid these compliments by a maneating tiger. his orange and black stripes quiver in a strange reptilian way, so what are we to assume? we're ruined.

you string a necklace of silver-black fish around my neck. you bring me water, an empty matchbook, a bowl of lemons, a broken cage, a jar of tacks, a box of pigment, a watch, a dead mouse. but what i want most in the world is a glass doorknob.

but then you just run off.

and i can't help wondering what the hell that was all about.

.

outside the bookshop, you're a soaked black and tan dog tethered to a parking meter. in these situations, there's always the possibility of a bite to the ankle (or, in the case of a very tall dog, the shoulder) but this time you have resigned, somewhat sad eyes, and i know for certain that nothing bad can possibly happen.

-you have such a strange impulse towards theft,

the dog says.


.


the enormous bush outside my window used to be a weed- a feral plant- a volunteer. all of the plants in my yard- bushes, flowers, trees- started out this way. none of them were planted intentionally. and now they're all huge. that bush has grown far above my head. this year it started flowering. little white flowers, white confetti, white piles of ash.


.


we're in the car, and i see a coyote by the side of the road. my mom and brother haven't seen him. but my mom asks,

-was he loping?

and i say

-no, he was just kind of walking.


.

we rob the tower of its bells (it's all we can do) but then we feel awful the next day, not hearing that deep chiming from across the field. we can't find a place in the house to hang them. wracked with guilt, we leave the bells by the church doorway at two in the morning, but they can't raise the money to re-hang them.

so fuckall, we'll just chime our small selves instead.


.


practical:

i am a day away from finishing college, and like i've already told many, i keep having this shivery feeling in my back like something's about to come up and eat me. i'm moving away. and i may need the assistance of several planes and ocean liners in order to do so.

we'll see.

.

what do you suppose we're actually aware of?

we see old people walking, hunched, on the sidewalks and feel a sweet, swaying sadness.

we want children but know that we wouldn't really know what to do with them. i'd worry about them nearly getting hit by cars, collecting metal objects and halloween costume detritus too close to the road.

life passes faster with a quick heartbeat. just think of mice and birds (700 bpm) as compared to elephants (30 bpm) for godsake.

think about it.

think about it..

.

not for solitude, not for romance

when i wake up, i think it's snowing out. it isn't. but white things are falling from the trees outside, so what's the difference? it's 84 degrees fahrenheit. so i waltz outside and watch a dog alone in a car barking, barking, barking at absolutely nothing. he seems lonely and sheepdoggish.



we come out of the old building with our clothes smelling of naphthalene and formaldehyde, our throats sore and confused, but good god, that's just part of it-

we saw the hoatzin and the maned wolf, for god's sake.



i dream of an hour given, with some familiar but lost face, some familiar but lost coat. i'm finishing fifth grade again, and an extra hour is given to me by my family as a gift. in the park, or in my house, i tell the story of the action figure's legs i found when out on a long walk. i found the first one outside tra ling's-- just one leg separated from the little plastic body, about three inches long, in fatigues, with a tiny plastic black knife painted on the thigh. i found the second one three blocks later-- the other leg, with a painted-on gun.

i laughed, then headed home and placed them gently on my junk shelf, which consists of--

far too many things to list.


if you think about it, it's too dirty.

.

whatever we found, we found well enough.

so i'm an untethered houseboat and you're both a ship and a pirate? how can you be something and someone at the same time? are you unhappy as a boat? as a person? i thought waves were supposed to be lulling. so relax.

the ocean would just swallow me up if i went out to sea. a toy houseboat. sails too tiny to catch any wind. i'd just dip and sink once, and it would be all over.

so enough with vessels. we should be some kind of animal, then, that swims and walks and climbs, sometimes all at once. i could easily spend the rest of my days swimming, walking, and climbing. easily.

.

-and you know that i've been so good. except for drinking. but he knew that i would.



even so.

(this is a level of discipline i’m not interested in.)



some kind of duke. gold strings. a duke. the saint of bicyclists and knife-makers. (the old kind of bicyclist, the chain-smoking kind who carried aperitif glasses with them as they wheeled (huge wheels) through trees, over hills, over cobblestones. over trees, through hills, under cobblestones.

and the same kind of knife-maker. inexplicably wheeled.)

who?

i’ve finally learned to hold my tongue. about nearly everything.

(do you know what you’re allowed?)

made of blue and red paper, cut into shreds so that design is an easier task.

(you’re allowed anything. nearly anything.)

steam, gears.

a light ringing bell and reading for the blind.

and who might you be?

.

-how is that close to "albatross"?

i am nothing if not haunched. listing (patience, kids):

a tire weight, a soldier, a cow. tapping biological motions. the truly immoral thing.

the worst thing, the truly immoral thing about a new novel is the thinness of the pages one has already read.

what transpires passes for SOMETHING. we fall asleep intertwined with tree branches. you leave me crowded but alone, nothing but a voice and possibly hands (though the hands are only rumored to exist. no one has ever actually seen them). a colossus molosser. a medal held together with rubber bands. a candy rotary phone. a pirate making balloon animals. the dark smell of ink.

we're the splendid other people.

i see an old woman walking with two children. she says,

-i want to see the new tulips they planted on the mall. but you two wouldn't be interested in that.

and the boy says, quietly, not looking at her,

-i would.


flying lessons. go ahead and laugh now, but i'm not joking. you'll believe me when i come by and blitz your house.

woosh.

happy unbirthday, O.

.

so come on by, come and slip and slide right through the ground

so you were there when that egg-shaped rock blew apart and became water, horses, Plato, trees, electricity, dirt, fish, me, everything?

how the hell was it?



i wake up one morning and i'm made of cloth. it's raining, so you have to help me get around. drag me across town, soaked, heavy. i'll be fine, i'll get used to it. it's you i'm worried about.



we bring a glorious south american ant colony to the city and display them in a large plastic box in a gallery. we're displaying "organic pattern." the museum patrons gawk, shuffle through, cluster around. but one day a few weeks after arriving, the ants (little brass miracles) look tired and aimless. and then they die all at once, over the course of one night. all two million of them. in the morning we come in and they're all there-- curled, dry, dead, and sad, under clear plastic.

the museum staff bag them up and put them out by the dumpster for the sanitation department to pick up. but god knows when they'll actually do it. maybe the ants and the giant plastic box will sit out there for weeks like our christmas trees did. the ants are left to lose their charm in the alleyway. people talk about the possible causes of death. some talk about drafts in the gallery. others talk about purposelessness and plastic.



one friday when i was in high school i wandered outside the art building during class (which i was prone to doing at the time) and i found, among the cans of paint and turpentine sitting on the curb, a small jar of old honey. the jar had been sitting out for quite awhile, and as a result it was full of suspended dead ants. and i was wracked with purpose. i brought the jar in, wrapped in my coat, and went to the utility room. i got a few boxes of needles and then sat down with the jar at the windowsill. i poured out the honey, drop by drop. the suspended ants drifted onto the windowsill. i used a needle to slough away the honey smothering their limbs. with that stickiness, i could make the ants whole again-- by carving carefully, carefully between their limbs, i could make them stand, uncurled, unsad-looking. i'd gotten through eight of them when i noticed the first one moving. he moved slowly at first. he moved, through the honey that still stuck to him-- he tried his limbs, his antennae, and then, utter miracle, he walked away. i spent an hour freeing the rest of them. some walked away. others just stood perfectly still. the lost ones stayed stuck to the windowsill, dead little statues.


.


place, side by side, the same picture of the same white dog, dead and gone a century before i was born, and i'll gladly show you the new trick i've learned. because everything is connected with little colored strings back to the same circus thing.


.

we met your savior, he's changed his behavior, now he's shooting and drinking with us


you don't need to use a knife to open a bottle of wine. if you’d asked for my help, you wouldn’t have had to pull out any sharp objects to get the job done. i am a viticultural ninja, a viticultural monk. i can open any bottle smoothly, with my mind.

just watch.

if you leave a bottle of red uncorked all night it will turn to vinegar. it will smell like this:

i hold the bottle out to you and you breathe in and say:

-i can’t tell the difference.


who was it i once watched force a cork back into an empty bottle? was it owen? it looked perfect, unopened again, and we were both delighted for a moment before saying,

-that’s really going to confuse and disappoint us later.


i light the corner of the room on fire. it stays that way, contained, smoldering all night, until i can see daylight through the wall. i open my mouth, sincerely believing that i can emit the sound of a train wreck— wailing wheels, crashing metal, whistles— but it doesn’t work, and i wind up making no sound at all.

the house gets blasted apart, the trees sway and splinter, even the ground gets blown to bits. but then you put on rite of spring, and it all slowly pulls itself back together again.

.

so, what, maybe we're made entirely of air and dust?

but what am i saying "maybe"?



your handwriting degenerates when you can't think of a new name for yourself.



a shih tzu or a lhasa apso (something) about *this big* goes straight for the two-year old boy next to me, and i yell at the owner,

-for the love of god, hold the thing back hold it BACK

HOLD IT BACK.


but she won't.


.


whatever this is, it comes in the shape of a giant black poodle. and i'm left alone with this behemoth, this monstrosity.

but it's our behemoth, our monstrosity.

so. okay.


.


children’s voices come from warm climates. we tie ribbons in their buttonholes, tie bells around their ankles. we are our own walking, hot fondness. we’re the nursery, complete with bedposts, pirates, sultans, gunpowder, man-eating tigers, curtains, chandeliers.

read out loud, and let the kid finish the last line of the book:

-and now we meet quite often, those empty pants and i, and we never shake or tremble. we both smile and we say...
-...“hi.”

.

a billiard ball rolls around in the faint hollow of your chest. as a child, you were different, strange. overpetted, born with a tiny horse inside you. he does you no harm, being very small, but he does you no good, either, so you grow up to be a substitute teacher.

stare. lie on the stove with your arms splayed in an attempt to warm yourself. try to warm me by extension.

faded. you're the color of the burro after he ran away.

.

______ ____ : the most disliked creature in all the animal kingdom.


where are we heading? i see that the street's curving and gray, but all i can really pay attention to is how close you keep coming to scraping the tires on the curb. i stare. you glaze, wearing blinders.

our pioneer infant shade

you sling a white sundress over your shoulder.

-do you think that will help you in the long run?

we pop the window out and climb through. we find our feet among flowers and shrubs. unexpected. where are we heading? i press a train token into your hand but you don't know what to do with it. where's the conductor, anyway? who are we supposed to pay? where's the train? you start shouting. the only people who appear are there to tell us

-please leave right now.

and the funny thing is that we WANT to leave right now. that's what we (you) were shouting about.

in the end, it's our rough fatigue that gets the best of us.

.

completely night-blind. it's amazing to me that i can still walk around after the sun has set, since i have no idea what's going on around me in the dark. but for some reason, my heart doesn't even skip a beat.


.

my dad tells a story about coming home from class one day and finding his roommate sitting at his desk, staring into space. my dad asked him,

-what's up? you look pensive.

and his roommate replied,

-oh, no, i'm not, i'm just thinking.


you could say, at the moment, that i am pensive. oh ho ho, you'd better believe that i am pensive.

confound again and again

i'll turn away towards the wall and examine the stucco. i'll count the ice cubes in my glass. i'll get into a fist fight with a liquor store, and i will lose. i am definitely pensive. at the moment.



draw a picket fence across my shoulder blades in black ink and i'll never wash it off.

my commands are real, so take them seriously. deny me and be doomed.


in the end, this is all held together with fishing line and spit, so what am i to expect?

-how does anybody fill their days? i think the truth is you fill your days most of the time by being in the washing machine of your own mind, thinking, what's this? when does it stop? am i enjoying it? i don't know, oh, it's time to go to sleep. i can't, i'm worried. and then you wake up and you smear jam over your family's face and your own. obviously at times life is very enjoyable.


count sheep, count birds, count lions, tigers, anything, but in the end, come find me in a room lit with one dim light bulb


and try to be nice about it.


.

is the most distinctive vodka in the world


give me a snarling drumroll, like stiff paper being ripped with a knife, and we'll be just fine.

your eyes well up. everyone stares. you make it worse by being angry that it's happening, that you can't stop it from happening. you slap your eyes to try to make it stop. it doesn't stop. it won't stop. your face is betraying you.

this is different from the work you want to be doing, from the colors you want to be projecting on the walls.

(and by "you" i of course mean "me.")

so instead of all that, let's have a cure. bring me a thin steak in a dark room. bring me an unnamed reddish-black drink that might just leave me poisoned. eat a balloon. serve me a juggernaut on a platter, with a sprig of parsley as garnish. feel a hot, heavy sway, get flushed, screw seventy-five light bulbs into the wall and light them. bathe in the ocean, using the rough fish to smooth your elbows and heels.

what else is there.

i find myself in the company of a thief and an arsonist. the arsonist is entirely composed of the thick dust collecting in the corners of my room. he plays with a broken pocket knife as he speaks.

he tells me the secret name his mother gave him at birth, and before the word has fully left his lips, i hear an electric snap, and he vanishes into thin air.

.

they pat the horse hitched to the cart, then head in and get a drink

i look at the sky for the first time in days, and it's blue,

then black

i will only confide in russian men from now on.

flat-foot stomp across the yard, fall through a foot of snow, break the door, then throw the latch.

some kind of exquisite, exhausted aloneness, always locking the horse after the barn was stolen.

.

"I wondered then, and always wonder, about the fact that, no matter how hard one may try to live without the intolerable burden of society, the unwelcome recognition of a face, perfect solitude is always shown to be temporary, a phantasm, a dream. I envy the lonely. Loneliness, which is to say neediness, drives others away and keeps them at bay; the great irony is that the more those of us who desire only autonomy try to escape, the more we are pursued, whereas those who most long for companionship are most denied it, as if that pull of longing creates a force field around them that repels those they most want to attract. By those same laws of psychological physics, the attempt to escape creates an undertow in the social surf that pulls people along with you as you flee. True escape seems impossible for people who crave it like a drug. It seems that there can be no pure life, no essential aloneness." (kate christensen, "the epicure's lament")

you can never get away, kiddo.

-you got ignition this is diction yeah you know it's gonna be fire

our awkward familiarity is made out of paper cutouts (a bear, a girl, a vase), string, the broken barrel of a gun, and the escape wheel of a watch.

gold and pearl

an aviator with violent practice, dead birds and giant caterpillars, a roped bronco, an unfinished sentence

i don't know what that means

but you've grown roots through the bottoms of your shoes

and i don't want to leave. keep all this in a poorly sealed box.

-hey, the place looks great.

.

it starts with a little strum, then it falls asleep, gathers dust


-he could get anyone to do anything he wanted, but he didn't know what he wanted.


the boys smoke cigars on a frayed bed. they're next to an old taxidermied racehorse on a shoddy wooden platform. they hide in the curtains when the father comes home. he pats the horse fondly, maybe even kisses it firmly on the muzzle (but the boys can't see this, as they are still in the curtains, cigars smoldering. how does the father not smell them?). he takes money from the flower vase, where he's hidden it. the boys take money from the flower vase, where they've hidden it. the mother does as well. it's an open hiding place.




there's the man upstairs.

(he won't turn off his house music, and i listen to it boom (uhn-chik, uhn-chik, uhn-chik) until five in the morning.)


i watch a red drop drift down the bottle. i let it pool, miniaturized, on the table


i sing along with this song, overloud, even though i don't know the words.


could we hire an orchestra, a mariachi band


oh, it breaks my heart, kids.

.

i'm motherly in an archetypal way. meaning i might just bake you into a pie after i tuck you into bed.



i hope that doesn't scare you off.












.

have you looked at that shelf much?

is something burning?

he looked up. he did not see her. he looked down. he did not see her.

why, ALL OF A SUDDEN

dot dot dot

suddenly, suddenly, suddenly.

a black tirade, an opera singer, a cosmonaut, a knife stuck in the table, a grease fire, a royal portrait, a name like water.

i can let my eyelids drop just a little when told something i don't quite understand, and say,

-i don't know what that means.

is there shame in that...dot dot dot....

lonely hands age faster than the rest of the body-- crooked fingers, the last two jutting away from the rest, wanting to escape the hand. a mendelian trait, similar to the ability to curl your tongue,

like this. (curls tongue)

try it.

lie on the couch with your hands thrown away over your head. listen, and while you're lying there, buzzing quietly, you'll hear an epic car crash right outside your house. on a one-lane street. with very few cars on it.

it all slowly starves. if i'm clinging to childhood, it's only because i'm biding my time before i climb into the lion cage. and you have to be very small to slip through those bars.

ok, mockingbird?

.