oct.17
The sky is not discernible from the thick warm haze. My eyes search in vain after the sound of a fighter jet.
watercolor women
watercolor women. they wait for me to enter my dream in the night. in the deep black night. there in the lamplight of a long wooden table they have been waiting. their withered hands hold vacantly the thin brushes which mark a single sheet of paper. colors leap from the tips like islands and solar storms and are heavy with the weight of being, the weight of waiting. and between the curtains of dawn i arrive in their forgotten hall, bewildered. and they will look not in my direction but something in my lostness will pull me in beside their lamplit table and i will see the markings. i will see their heavy blue eyeshadow and the trembling of the brushes and i will know of their waiting and i will hurry away.
the back of my hand
the back of my hand. the back of my hand is warm to the touch and clammy with sweat (i ate something at lunch which didn’t agree with me and i think it made me sick). in this polluted, windless light the flesh on my hand is a dull sandy color with tones of pink and where the veins take shape and rise and make shadows, it is darker there. the skin is warm and when you push down on it you can fill the inner invisible strings parting and then the hard certainty of bone. four veins swim over the top of my wrist and feed around my knuckles and into my fingers. one vein is prominent and very straight and goes directly into my middle finger. another bends around to join the first and traces what looks like the eye of a crocodile. the hairs on the back of my hand are very fine and can only be appreciated on the hand in profile. the hair becomes darker on the fingers. there are a few scars around the knuckle of my pinky finger from the surgery to repair my shattered metacarpal: a self inflicted wound. the scarring is raised and slightly shiny like a ribbon in a certain light. the joints of my fingers are darker and creased from movement. the nails are pink and trimmed to a modest length and there is a little bit of dirt beneath them. the hand can stretch an extended tenth on any piano. and it remembers the song better than i.