WAYLON GROWS QUICKLY, gaining 2 lbs. already. He sleeps in Hoa's arms, waking frequently to nurse. This morning he turned his eyes on me, let out a yelp and turned back for a nipple. Lime green sheets are piled on the bed and there's a mound of soft pillows. He looks like a curious tiny elf embedded in a garden of fluff. There's an image on TV of the national security adviser. She has cruel eyes and a bitter, turned-down mouth. The spirit of place is manifest in these harsh, tired features. It fights us, dares our flesh to stand up by what it will know. Try on new blue jeans. Turn around in a mirror. A body's quite submissive. But it knows what I don't, desperately attentive to the minutest pulsation. It listens to gods and demons and knows all about possession. A funeral motorcade crosses the Colorado. Under Congress Ave hang a million bats. We might follow the soul of the deceased one into the water of the Colorado, to drown by the slow gaze of river perch. There we float with our children, perfected by liquid putrefaction. The angels of our appetites disappear; we are alone. When the spirit's dead, life returns. The molecules reform into flesh and we'll swim up to greet a dazzling surface of sunlight and algae. Turtles plop off their rocks, startled. All that's changed is how we look. See a narrow ribbon of river and cypress bending under a breeze along dense banks. Observe this new creature, writhing back onto the muddy edge, naked and glowing for the first time.
Posted by Dale at May 23, 2004 09:30 PM