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I had no intention to write, at least not directly, about the abortion, feeling it was hardly worth (evidently) talking about.
Over communal dinners at the art colony where I’d gone to complete a collection of poems it was the ever more vivid details of glimpses of wildlife that opened holes in the on-going discussions of agents and tours and advances, expanding until the images were unforgettably glamorous: evening light on the soft grey fur, red tongues lolling out over the sharp white teeth of the slavering mouths.
Meanwhile (Boo!) someone quietly sliding a hand under one corner of the tablecloth … and tilting the gathered folds toward and away from the light.
I could tell you a ghost story, but … What I don’t say has its own force: the truths I don’t tell stay nearest in some ways — their mute clamor drowning out other musics but intermittently at worst, at best. The chances we take and the chances we don’t, enmeshed. Just a gesture. And Who here would believe me? Why not just … A question there (always with me) doing its own work or being worked as excuse.
Troubling gorgeous forms dissolving just out of reach of description: shadows of young trees traced in their shifting over snow that melts, smoky fur returning to smoke, bright eyes as embers, winking out. It was a long time ago now. And I turned from the empty window or the window I insisted was empty back to the fire or just the ashes on the hearth. There was the open notebook and when I looked up in the window some white … Whatever it was (which never existed and never departs). I could tell you.
There was nothing. It was like.