BLOOD
BECAUSE NOTHING BUT BLOOD HAS THE
POWER TO RESONATE AGAINST THE VOID
One of the ugliest buildings in Toronto surely
Robards Library Grey hulking monolith wicked
wind tunnel forcing skirts +once in 76 lifting feet
off of ground as creepy law student don juan proposed
lunch Later removing his shirt to reveal 3 nipples
Saw him on the evening news 40 yrs. later on the little
sidebar beside the weather now a creepy criminal lawyer
In a parallel world we did not have children What is your
list of things you are certain will happen?
There is a smell in the air today that only you can smell And you
want to hold onto your old comfortable fears If you stop worrying
about them will the outcome change? Hard to say what these
harbingers might mean so I cling to mine steadfastly
The list:
- aliens will arrive
- one day I will be kidnapped to a bunker
- mortal illness imminent
- serial killer in house/short+scruffy
- somewhere crematoria are being built behind a scrim
- there is an afterlife it is your breath רוח Ruach (literally wind)
I do know what my father would have said or done in any of these
situations Even though he isn’t here to I think he will always have
a say On taking up horseback riding at 30: That’s a 2000 lb. animal
if you’re afraid it will know On neighbour’s slight lover saying he
played college ball: He’s full of shit On God: I doubt it
On atheists coming to believe as they get closer to death: belly laugh
A super-human faith He never did equivocate or take the bait Ever
Daughter of horseback riding man catches birds with a salt shaker
He said: Just shake some on their tails
I lay in wait for hours Learned how to be still +small Never caught a
bird at all Now I wait for words sometimes birds sometimes freedom
Super-human faith Father radiates in all kinds of places
__
His eyes were very blue and very beautiful half hid away
in the leathery seams of his face.
(Cormac McCarthy The Crossing 1995)
Lee 1921-1989
Winter 2017
93 days to 60 a precious wildness simmers in the jaded botch
__
There’s no shortage of tormented things. Far from mirrors I feed
dreams of fame+travel, extraordinary men offering me necklaces,
words that can be eaten they’re so sweet, so warm, so corporeal.
Adelia Prado 1981
