the virtues of noise and selective memory (and cake)
she says she thinks of us drinking tea on the shore he says hello even though he's quite busy getting married she says good morning and she tickles me and she laughs while the water boils for our barely there coffee stained wet he says 'you're up?!' and we do the hug dance (pat pat pat, swing swing swing) before he buries himself in the news he blurts out a joke and sprawls out on the sofa next to me and we turn into freshly popped toast she's out of breath and far away and telling me about her scripts and in between about her day and in between we pull faces and make sounds he talks about his delicate thoughts even though he died a long time ago--and i want him like i want the hot blooded and breathing she sings as if nobody can see her he said maybe this is all one electron everywhere and all the time--he showed me feynman smiling. and when i'm greedy i still wonder if i scratch an itch what infinitesimal (mine, mine, my) impact it could have on him. she says she thought of me and fondly (i'm not dead?) i play them all together in chorus to drown out the noise pretending to be noise the very substantial nothing discussed from every angle and sometimes in loudspeaker print now i can read arabic very slowly and stop often, now i stop when before i used to settle for the gist i used to settle because i didn't want to stop the flow or make the language self conscious so maybe you'd feel like you were talking to yourself that wasn't fair of me. he used to sneer and say life isn't fair. i don't remember his argument for what that had to do with trying. i don't remember when my belly squeezes out laughs until my insides bruise and i don't remember when i watch tiny dramatic water marbles slow motion splat sped up tap tap tap on my heavy chest i forget and i remember what i ought to--i stay suspended like those resigned to drown, in a kind murmur which would almost make me feel better about being around shmoozers on my birthday luckily i'll also be sedated with ice cream cake :) |