"Nothing breaks clean. A stone dreams. Still—you rise. Again."
- Poet
Four Individual Poems to Ponder
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Part 2: Accommodation VII. Anamnesis The slate was never clean bore your name in your own hand ts uncrossed, heavy pressure when anxious, pen tearing through leaving impressions every sentence after must accommodate must build itself around the shape of that first gash ======= VIII. What You Get The myth promises cleavage— clean—surgical—total. What you get: continuity messy, partial, exhausting. Promises you'll be new. Hands you back yourself— still in the original packaging unopened— same fingerprints, same voice returning your own call same welts you press— checking— the way you press elevator buttons that are already lit— to confirm they still hurt. ======= IX. The Second Midnight Change is not the kiss at midnight— not salvation from the cab ride after the cab driver's air freshener—chem-pine— making you nauseous your lipstick smudged, the number saved as "DO NOT RESURRECT." Not salvation from the bottles you'll replace by the second the cold silver of the cork-top, telling yourself wine's different—until it isn't— as if the vintage changes what it does when you're alone at 3:39 a.m. face in the glass slab— checking for their text—text and you are still this mouth— saying fine in that voice you recognize but don't remember teaching yourself. The stray's voice. Or yours. ======= X. Again On the third day not the first (that manic start) not the second (the gutting out) but the third you try again Not because you believe this time will work but because the body has this routine waking up the ceramic thud of the unwashed mug burning the toast you know the right setting but refuse to trust it trying again The river doesn't choose to return to the stone. The stone doesn't choose to accommodate. But the river returns And the stone, eventually, shifts tired of being stone the river is the only thing that understands You put your hand in the river The cold makes you gasp The stone doesn't This is erosion becoming inspiration the stone's dream of being water.
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