It is said by the echo of the dying man’s body that cold is only cold in relation to warm. I knew that I was not dreaming by the dandruff on my lapel. I knew I was in the same place I’d been for several months by watching the band exit the conga-van on Monroe Avenue. The wind in a circus is caused by passing oohs and ahhs. Learning to fly comes at a cost of crashing into houses and haystacks. When a house is built, there is no artist to sketch the masons, carpenters, and electricians building the house. The fisherman’s lodge is a church in the red night. I knew I was not in my country, that my country was in me.
I got tired of carrying sacks of stones I’d place my bets with and changed to carrying pockets full of space for putting between things like houses, teeth, fenceposts, eyes, phrases, table-fruit.
There’s so little to work with, to work out, to work around. It’s a long corner, unlike a hairpin where winds meet – circumstance barrels out like a deer flanked and shot, two Fins after it with Mosin-Nagants – sauna later in the evening. Rarely do events play out — Humans in charge of it mostly, and a scatter of dandelion seeds in the red humidity of a swollen moon.
