[Beginning of a prose poem…]
The skeleton turning and turning. The orange creek overflows. Flooding the garden and the chicken coop. A night run in the high country. The grandmother kills the hen with the kitchen knife. The chicken’s egg ready for picking. Warm brown. I am lost. I become more lost. The bicycle escapes her hand. May apples beckon. I continue walking. Mud pies, cakes turn brittle in the noonday sun. I have mad eyes of a mad hen. I see myself in the puddle left by the early morning rain. I dream of lilies and angels. I watch the ostrich. Such a word melancholy. Other words I don’t understand. Rouge dust. Cow dung. Every day. I am lost. More than lost. Dream agony. My grandmother’s singer sewing machine sings the treadle. I place my bare feet on the cold metal to feel the pull of the world. Rock away, rock away. Black lacquer. Still. Still. Tears for everything. Leveling the days. The pump at the sink. Red. The pump in the yard. Green. White stars at night. Stars pulse. Where do they go in the daylight. Into the throat of frogs. Unbearable beauty. Unbearable love. Fireflies flinch in rhythm. I watch my father hoe his garden in darkness. I hear each gash in the earth. Row upon row upon row of unbearable sound.