shipsthatpass:

  You smelled of burning maps, smirked as to let slip the dogs of war. Not the stale slate windbreaker & steel-cut oats above the Hudson.  I was whistling “Wake Up, Little Susie” & wearing a huipil.   Your crow’s feet, tasseographical signs for journey of hindrance, diploma .  The conversation went like giraffes fighting:  How do you behead a poem like a horse?  Why is the “ch” silent in “chthonic”?  I refused your urge to push the mental health button, see what might appear:  pair of falcons, oil cymes between trains, a child in a tiara.  I told you the death rate was 1180 for every 1200 jumps, including Kid Courage.  I told you in Hong Kong it’s the most popular form.  You said falling from this height blows your clothes off, denies the senses.  You wondered what happened to the 20 who got away?  Cross-winds, a unicycle & my Mets cap divided factors.  But I keep thinking of you like Colomb & Williams thought of Wayne C. Booth, writing his voice into the third edition of The Craft of Research years after he died.  I imagine you might fish endangered sturgeon & dream of Guernica on Thursdays.  If so, write to me. We could go to sea in a sieve, double the blind, buck your tiger, bell my cat, leap this dark, fall to a lot.

4:56 pm  •  28 September 2010  •  13 notes