Read You Must Remember This Online
Authors: Michael Bazzett
There are no clocks here. All we know is this room, and waiting.”
“For me,” he said.
There was no reply. The women exchanged glances. There was not
one among them that could tell him they had no navels, no scars.
Their bodies were like those of dolls, a smooth pink flatness round-
ing down the belly and around, unbroken.
              Â
There was a man, Elpenor, the youngest in our ranks, none too brave in battle, none too sound in mind
.
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BOOK
10,
THE ODYSSEY
There he is, standing on the granite shingle, watching
a sail recede across the bright water, no larger than a swan.
The shouts that laced his dreams were preparations for departure.
He nuzzled into sleep, forgotten. Useless to raise his voice now,
yet the cries of the gulls cut sharply. He feels the morning breeze
blow through him like a ladder. He does not yet know that he is
dead, having run so hurriedly out of his broken-necked body.
But when he wanders back and sees the spine angled like a
snapped twig, the earth around soaked dark, he turns and runs
toward the glinting water and across the heaving waves, leaving
no tracks on their rolling hills, crying,
Wait! I'm here. I'm still here!
The wing
of a moth: fine ridges, dusty translucence, powdery
crumbling as it feathers between two
fingers: you
are made of such soft stuff, crumbling
beneath breath;
the dust on your things, your bookshelves and shoes, was once
skin, and your day of long walking is
done, not done
through wet grass, shadows, and
sight: the starling-spangled elm, the hinges of your hand, clouds
sledding on the wind.
It used to come into the light,
so deeply creased it seemed to be scarred,
bristling with hairs like a baby elephant.
Its hunger was slow and stolid but also
always there, tusks clicking above its steady
jaws as it moved among the trees.
Seeing the limit of its skin lessened itâ
the way it lightened into pinkness near the lips
unnerved us. We hurled rocks and broken
concrete, even poked it with sticks
we'd blackened in the fire. When the first blade
cut and drew a startling thread of blood,
it moaned so quietly we backed away.
It sounds like my grandmother in her sleep,
someone whispered. We looked
at one another. The thing was barely
moving. Then the boy who'd spoken
unstrapped the knife from the stick, wiped it
clean on the grass and folded it
shut with a sharp click. That's enough,
he said. It had been so much
easier than we'd imagined.
This is what we would have said,
if we had spoken of it again.
First, there is the consideration of my appearance which even those
who care for me say is troublesome. It is not simply the coarseness
of hair coming from where one does not anticipate hair, but also
things beneath the surface that stretch the skin and hinges that work
differently, so I am both more and less mobile than your kind and though
I've learned to walk upright as a man, when I'm alone I scuttle sideways.
I am quite fast. I hope I can say this without boasting. I am told
I appear more liquid than solid when I wend across a room, feathering
over couches, tables and other obstructions rather than walking round.
Uneven surfaces disturb me no more than trees disturb the wind.
People do not tell me these things in admiration but as explanation
for the fear that glitters in their eyes. I try to speak softly but my voice
breaks like glass. When they found me, I was feeding on venison. A doe,
toppled on the roadside and risen in the afternoon sun. I kept my vigil
until dusk, then scissored slowly up the bank and started in. I was young.
Headlights astonished me. I was docile, easily taken. The whole escapade
leaves me with a feeling of vague shame and chagrin, especially now
that I've learned to read and can place the incident on the shelf of context.
I have a window in my room overlooking the garden from which I see
the crowns of trees, and in the evening the sunset gilds the rooftops then
stretches a blanket of shadow across them until darkness eats the world.
They were kind enough to tint the window for me so that I can see
out but no one can see in which might sound like a lonely thing to say
but I understand. I have foresworn using my pincers to sever the cordage
of my meals though knife and fork feel dull as cold toes. Yet the fear
remains in others' eyes and is there always, so much so that I wonder
if it is not unfounded. I have dreams. Some I am not inclined to share,
but there is one that continues to return and seems innocent enough.
It seems to spring from your world more than mine and I wonder if you
might be willing to interpret its signs. I cannot tell it with words but must
write the dream upon the world with my body. I have been waiting
to do this for a long time. My joints ache to unfurl. You were kind
to listen. Let me offer my dream in return. Open the door. Let me out.
Have you heard the one about the nun and the penguin
in the bathtub and the nun drops the soap
and says to the penguin, Do you think you could
fish that out? And the penguin says, What do you think I am,
a radio? We used to tell it in school, everyone
standing in a circle and laughing like jackals, except for the one
not in on the joke, which in this particular poem
is you, because it's not a joke at all
just a misleading non sequitur
designed to bait the unwitting
into falling into laughter alongside everyone else
so they could then be turned upon and savagely asked:
              Â
What's so fucking funny?
As we watched them squirm to explain, grasping
at the tuxedoed symmetry of nuns and penguins,
the real laughter thundered out and made it
clear how much we'd learned.
I walked outside and looked to where the sky used to be.
The new laminate is better than I feared, I murmured,
but why this watery yellow? Why not sky blue?
The president's voice crackled over the loudspeakers
and announced that yellow was
something-something
but the spatter of white noise drowned him out.
The shop across the streetâthe one that sells clay figurinesâ
was not much help. Did you understand the president?
I asked, a little out of breath from running across the avenue.
The storekeeper smiled and said,
I am not able to recognize the president
even when I look right at him.
How much is that, I said, pointing at a figurine,
a little man, posed on a shelf behind him.
Oh, that one is not for sale.
                                                   Â
Why not?
Because it's me.
I leaned across the counter to peer at the tiny face
and saw that it was true: a perfect likeness. Well, I said,
whirling to leave, I guess now we know who the whore is.
lived oblivious to the drifting veils of rain.
There were no fences. The point of existence
was to gather things in concentric rings
so possessions formed the hive where you lived.
It was the most effective prison ever devised
by humans. When the downpour came to melt
it away, filling depressions with grit and soft clay,
pottery shards returned to their elementâbones
came unbound. Glass rose like fins from the ground.
She arrived in a dark suit and a mask-like smile, explaining
her services in a manner so polished it almost put us off.
This is my specialty, she soothed. Both mind and house
will be empty as a mountain wind once I'm done. I sensed
she'd said those words before. We sat at the kitchen table,
you and I, looking at one another, hoping the other felt more
certain, more assured. Once we signed, it would take years
before we acknowledged our mistake. She'd left the whole day
open, and could begin immediately. Was there perhaps a guest
room where she could change? Her assistant arrived with
a black duffel, fresh white towels, and a stainless-steel basin.
I didn't know the basin would be so big, I murmured.
We looked at one another warily. It isn't always a clean process,
she reassured. You do understand, once I'm sequestered, it is
very important that I not be disturbed. We nodded. She closed
the door with an audible click. For the first few hours, it seemed
okay. Her assistant sat out in the van, with the windows down,
reading. We sat in the living room and tried to do the same,
ignoring the sounds coming from the guest room, sighs that
sharpened into cries. When a few faces started disappearing
in the photographs above the piano, you leapt to your feet.
This isn't right, you said. These things shouldn't be removed.
But what about the pain? I asked. Don't you want it gone?
No, you said, pointing to the image of a child, suddenly frantic.
The eyes had faded to nothing. From forehead to cheekbone
was just smooth skin. I ran to the window. The van was gone,
as was the tire swing that had been there an hour earlier. I looked
and saw the elm losing its limbs, one by one. Maybe we can still
get some of our money back, I said. And then you said: I want her
gone. The assistant had sealed the door shut with tape. It came
off with a spattering sound, and the shrieks from inside paused.
Then the voice came, a strangled croak as I opened the door
and saw her, smaller than I remembered, perched on the dresser,
her suit pooled on the floor beneath her. Her face had become
a sort of beak, hinged open and hissing. But it was the children
that were upsetting, sitting in a circle at her feet, quietly singing.
                           Â
after Tomaž Šalamun
Leather without history
is merely the skin of the dead
animals that once walked these fields.
Strength without rickets
can be seen on any playground.
Consider the appetite
of these children and remember:
blood is silk.
Walk silently away. Drop your empty
cup in the receptacle. Note
how the plastic helmet is stained brown
from where your lips drew coffee
out with a wet sound.
Blood is like fruit
.
Maybe spend a moment
thinking about the tanks and hunger
but keep moving.