Thursday, May 7, 2015

70




Whatsoever ye do unto him ye do unto Me.” Conceptualize font, italic, quotation, capital. Assume you and I are mirrors installed in each other's thumbs, that we ride the bus to work and see first passengers asleep, left eyebrows cocked against gravity. An apostrophe presumes possession or contraction. The birth of the sentence often depends on contractions or on sounds that travel over periods. Who knew it's easier to throw a deflated ball than a hard one? That what we leave out becomes a mark that tells us what isn't there? That anger fills the space between question and no answer. Tell me where in your body you feel it, what happens when you express it. It happens for me at the corner of Makahiki Way and South King Street the night Bill 6 passes the City Council. A middle-aged man sweeps the sidewalk outside the tent that he and his wife put up at dusk. No person shall sit or lie.

--7 May 2015

2 comments:

Karen said...

I LOVE this. I've read it four times over the last few days & love it more and more each time. The ending is fantastic. My only suggestions is that the two sentences on grammar back-to-back seems to be too much, and by the second sentence "The birth of the sentence..." it doesn't feel as new. "An apostrophe presumes..." and "The birth of the sentence" should either be collapsed into one sentence or spread apart. This is minor - it's great.

Janet said...

I am so mad about that bill, such a dog in the manger thing. "Conceptualize the font" is brilliant, especially as it hits me again when you get to birth; I do think of font as a baptismal one (conceiving matters!) at the same time as it's a letter font.