Stories




i. Life expectancy.


You have had:
Christmases that last a long time
Christmases that were shrunk to fit
ticket-sized, cramped
uncomfortable
hungover in a bathroom stall.


In much the same way
that heartbeats of animals last the same length
sped or slowed
the same number of heartbeats
the same number


anteater buffalo white crane
or more obscure fragile creatures
coal-black mice hidden in the rails


or your own architectures
animal in their own invisible ways.
Animal heart animal lung
small finger of gall
veins like antstreams
intelligent inscrutable nerveless.




ii. In transit.


You follow stories in transportation
plots played out in subway cars despite deafening noise
you film your own story
constructing another (others) entirely for whoever watches you;


stories told in absence
in passing, incomplete
grayed with age dog-eared unfamiliar names written there
in any way unpristine


stories prefaced by a long climb up the stairs
a railing a rope a recycled trope:
a story told while ascending,
prefaces to excuse interiors or a certain lack.


Stories that burn
that go underground.





iii. The small desk.

A collection of things you have received and forgotten
your name stitched in linen or other names
built of wire; a box of the smallest things you could find;


an architectural whorl you found once on the curb
its burnished gilt paint
and the bareness where it was once connected to its house;
books begun and begun;


you have this place of collection.
you keep together what others have cobbled together,


A story told in a jumble. A story about things you have not put together,
a story about how things will not come together.




iv. Ownership


Your name is a word that binds a hawk to a master's arm
but you try not to attach much significance to this.


Catalogues of names in basement shelves
detail decade variances. You have not met
a ten-year old Astrid.
(Somewhere is an algorithm to predict
when and where there will be child Astrids.)


You carry a list of the names of the dead
repeat each one to yourself on a stepladder,
remove each one. Some hold only an empty graph,
others hold letters and letters, evidence of a life
bound to paper. Carbon copies, onionskin.
In boxes labeled Necrology these stories leave for other archives.


A story told in sequence. A chronological survey,
One person bound to one place,
a litany of dates.





12/16/2004