The old woman sat naked in a wicker chair under a jacaranda tree at midnight, sprinkled with purple petals, dreaming of a handful of dust.
*
Everything in the house had to be put in boxes, even the tiniest object--because that is all death means--handled, wrapped, listed, stored.
*
It was gathering food among rocks in the arroyo--grasshopper mouse, no bigger than a thumb--then shadow, wings, owl, a silent puff of fur.
*
After the performance, she removed the sweat-stained costume and her makeup; then, because of the mirror, her face, which was now complete.
*
Days later, Monday, work, it was already forgotten, that moment in the dark when by synchronicity they climaxed together and were destroyed.
*
Hot wind, sand blown against plate glass, centuries now, and a fine-etched image emerges, a city, maybe, if anyone were there to see.
*
That metaphor is dead that says he plows a field and under the sweat of his plowing something writes itself in compost: dead metaphor it says.
*
Carrying grocery bags, he walks as far as he can through the scorched land without stopping to eat, or think, or pull out his rusted pistol.
*
They had wandered years though wilderness, looking, not noticing until the land cooled and greened around them that the children were gone.
*
I told you, he said to the gravestone, someone will always be here, someone will remember the story--as they lowered him, he said I told you.
No comments:
Post a Comment