I want to write an
honest sentence. An empire dissolves in an acid bath of lies; I dip
my foot in vinegar to kill a fungus that lives between my
third and fourth toes. It likes a basic environment, Bryant
tells me. The president manufactures a violent pity, piety matched to
a sacred gun. Go fund the little girl's surgery, the man's rehab,
redeem the coupons of our anguish. A psychopath's self-study guide
would include questions about intent, the ardor required to carry it
out. Pity without empathy is all self-directed.
My dog pushes up on
my hands when I meditate. She licks my leg when I type. She turns her
big brown eyes at the precise angle to touch me. She places her head
between her two front paws: one side clear claws, the other side
black, her ears up like satellite dishes. She dishes out the
self-pity, wanting a walk.
Wind rustles in the
near palm, the further trees. Birds chitter in layers. The earthquake
map spills outward from the summit in yellow and red dots. House like
a hammock in the wind. The outcome is either 1) very good; 2) very
bad; or 3) takes the middle way, whatever that way is.
The dog has moved
beside my chair. She stares at my feet. A woman climbed under the
Statue of Liberty's foot, as if to be ground down by her heel or to
persuade her of something. Suffer the little children in a court of
law, testifying at age three about their missing mothers, their
missing brothers. Suffer, the president says. That's how he
negotiates. That's how he negates.
How do you write, my
former teacher asks. How do you read, one might ask in return. Do you
take what is crafted and drill a whole in its hull? Do you take its
material and de-matter it? Is meaning immaterial before it enters the
bloodstream, like lead? If I were in Flint, he says, I'd kill
someone. Hard Flint. The man who studied psychopaths was one. He only
lacked the urge to kill.
Adulthood is a
suburb we inhabit only to the extent that we accept its boundaries.
The small lot begins from stone, ends in soft earth that easily
shifts. The earth is so fragile I want to bend down and hold it
still.
8 July 2018
