.
First
thought when he wakes in his bed.
He
recalls his whole family is dead.
He rummages ‘round in his head to think
what
he might think up instead to give
.
some
kind of mass to the zero that dead is.
What
is the aim of the scheme?
Here’s
what the dream is he wakes from.
It’s
eternally raining in August. He thinks
.
it
is morning but grayness could be
any
of time of the day not yet night.
He
walks his two canine but human-faced
pets
who entangle themselves in his limbs
.
every
time they go out and get wet:
he
never wears more than his underwear.
He
can feel his face scowl but he can’t
feel
what it might be scowling about.
.
This
isn’t what life is like, of course. This is
what
life really is. He eschews metaphor
but
enjoys using simile: likes “neat as a pin”
most
of all. He savors its subversiveness:
.
that
such a small sleek straight sharp point
should
be able so neatly to puncture the flesh,
spill
the blood, even kill – more deadly than
such
a small thing ought to be – and that
.
this
should wrest out the essence of “neat” –
surely
no other words bore such replete
simulacra
of actual thing. “Neat as a pin”
was
as close as four words could become,
.
even
bring you, to what to believe. Yet
like
the words death, father, son, mum
and
brother, at last they deceive and they
numb.
Mum’s the word. Every word’s mum.
.
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