Wednesday, May 19, 2021

[I saw a little movie of a person stroking a small bird with two Q-tips, one held between] by Diane Seuss

[I saw a little movie of a person stroking a small bird with two Q-tips, one held between]

I saw a little movie of a person stroking a small bird with two Q-tips, one held between 
the forefinger and thumb of each hand. It tipped back its head to receive the minor 
tenderness, which to the bird must have felt like being touched by a god. For a moment 
I knew what it would be to feel at the mercy of love, small-scale, the kind shown but not 
spoken of. I was afraid to touch you. I was afraid of the lesions you’d described to me 
over the phone, their locations and the measurement, in centimeters, of each. Jesus-marks, 
you called them. All so I would be prepared and unafraid or less afraid but still I was afraid 
of dying like you were dying. When I first arrived I looked so long into your eyes you 
shivered and ordered me to look away. You were imperious in your dying and yet courtly 
about my fear, you understood, as if I were a child afraid of lightning storms, which I am, 
having at age ten been struck. Out of the blue you said that once you were dead I’d never 
be able to listen to Blue again, Joni Mitchell’s Blue, not just the song but the whole album. 
It was a minor curse you lay across my shoulders like a fur dyed blue, and so I listen now 
in defiance of you. In the listening the pronouns shift. We are listening. There is no death.



No comments:

Post a Comment

Note: Only a member of this blog may post a comment.