I lose grounds, a soiling taste, and
gravel moisture. Filled with soul pictures, sweet sounds, and a lotic voice—as
dead in parts, living excitements, a tear revved by mere visions. Many
appetites, evermore-never, a generational curse—at forces with
parents, at tea with uncles, at tyrannies with the internal woman. The fated
chantress, tumbling lungs, or rather, her deep suspicion. That pail of loquats,
the summer’s winepress, the skittish serenade … many gravid nightmares, a tale
receptive to chi, a style composed by ants … the rapidity an earthquake, the mental
sea-whale, a velvet symphony; at alms dying, at engines living, recorded as one
ache in time. We read letters, those morbid memoirs, the uplifting catastrophe;
the vignette, winter’s sestina, the soul so close it burns. Over cinnamon
coffee, with wafers with wine, the communion with family; those voiceprints, the
antique vase, morbid memorabilia … and taller ghosts.
