What is the name of that goddess in the print, her arms full of instruments for music and torture, her mouth beautiful like a flower or the tip of a spear, her red-painted feet flashing across hot coals and a circle of fire? I am not cunning like that, I am not fierce or graceful, and it’s become harder to read more than one book at once. Do you remember when I tried to cook two things at the same time on the two hot plates of the stove? One saucepan was burned so badly we had to throw it away. And as I stood in the yard before I dropped the piece of disfigured metal with its melted plastic handle into the trash, I remembered the way my father looked just hours after his death, laid out on a bed for want of a coffin, arms folded on his chest in the attitude of peaceful sleeping. His skin had not cooled yet, his cheeks had not taken on the hue of those who’ve started walking away from this place and will no longer look at the spill of late flowering blooms by the fence. With my two arms I hugged myself the way another would. With my two hands I gathered up and tied my hair, I walked back to my house of appetites, my house of things, my life of many parts waiting to be wound and folded, mended, counted, found.
In response to Via Negativa: Potent Combination.