It isn’t how it looks but how it feels
I just sit there opening my mind to my mind
And all the soldiers of the garden, the frogs and snakes
And all the foot soldiers in the garden composing letters under the stars
The most idle days are the ones in which I most occupy myself
I occupy myself with all that exists
I don’t remember the pleasant sensation of a hand on my breast
The soldiers in the garden strum their guitars
I can’t contain myself any longer
I wanted very badly to feel very badly to feel
I don’t remember the pleasant sensation at all
I reached for words and spinster’s spectacles appeared on the shelf of the airport bookstore
I imagine a black hole at the far end of the airport corridor
People running breathless toward the departure gate on New Year’s Eve
There must be a way to say it; the long goodbye can’t speak of itself
We stood together in the middle of the Brooklyn Bridge but that was all
The Nor’easter blew the black ice in from the Lakes
It was the start of a long winter
I am certain there is consequence in the afterlife
It happened in Buffalo without anything happening at all
At that moment I entered him with my mind
Some boundary for a brief flash disappeared
To the untrained eye it’s as if nothing had, in actuality, occurred
The wind blew the postcard out of my hands and into the Niagara River
The Falls were invisible in the rain and heavy mist
I couldn’t see them though my blouse and face were wet
I admit I’ve made some mistakes
You can close and open your mind as easily as blinking your eyes
Wanting to be elsewhere I am elsewhere
Wanting to be here I find my way back though the garden has grown thick with weeds
I will write an opera called The Opera Student
I know the story, I know that it ends badly
The opera student learns to die incrementally
Yet it may be possible to be sung back to life
It may be entirely possible to be sung back to life
I don’t remember what I ate a year ago today
A year ago today in Los Angeles the cat died
I wanted very badly to be, if only briefly, the rude sensation: messy and guttural
In the afterlife the souls of lovers can be united
Writing these words it is no longer entirely clear what I might be
This morning I watched the slow destruction of the world
The wind dancing the storm clouds across the sky
It was impossible to decide what to take and what to leave behind
Am I fighting for my life in a comfortable bed?
The skies are clammy and the wind smells of sweat
And all the while people going about their business, conducting normal daily lives
So I sit in the garden opening my mind to my mind
The wind slow dancing the storm clouds across the sky
All that exists is the reel that unwinds in the mind of the wind
There is the sensation I can’t remember at all
The weight of his hand on my face
He turned to me with all the force of his terrible love
It crashed down and I spun like a top across the floor of the room
I spun into the garden and my feet sunk into the mud
It had either just stopped raining or the rain had just begun
In any case, in this opera, something started and something also stopped
He turned to me with the all the force of his terrible face
He gave me a watch with a very large face from the counterfeiters in Chinatown
I didn’t want to hold it to my ear
I spun like a top across the floor of the departure lounge
I spun like a planet spinning amid the stars
It is important to walk into the black hole at the end of the airport corridor when your name is called
It is important to be able to step in or out of the room you are in
I know people who can only lean out of windows, waving or shielding their eyes from the sun and wind, sometimes the moon
the moon last night had a very large face
I have never shared a hotel room with love someone said as we waited to board the airport train
I have never shared a hotel room at all said someone else
It is important to have a key to the room you are in
That is what the postcard said
You can’t just sit there bending words to your will said the frogs and the snakes
It’s like flogging a pegasus grazing in a lyrical field on a lyrical hill
I leave the world without leaving the world said the wind
The animal that can say I said where do you go when you go away
The world is not the world the opera student and the soldier sing out the window of the airport hotel
I want to open the door to the room of my mind
I want to be sung back to life said the mythical beast.
No one can be opened by a skeleton key.
