Neverripples

Taller than five-four, shorter than five-five; five and a half inches circumference at the narrowest (wrist), thirty-six at the widest (hips). Such are the limits of my body and do not begin to measure the limits of the mind.

I don't know when the sun sets. If there were a real beach around, I'd sit and watch the water every chance I had. The ocean affords a lot of second chances. Waves wave on without a ripple.


That was very last day of first semester there. You were in school. I was reading the Washington Post on the beach and taking on sand through those side eyelets. I've taken a lot of pictures of myself in the last year and I shook out all my ballast.

The ten cuts on my shoulder - left shoulder, because I'm right-handed - are yellow, specked with red, blushed with pink. I'm not interested in watching them bleed. They hold pain I only must feel when my bra strap bites into my skin. I want to watch them heal. It's a failed abstraction. I was trying to draw an X because I thought it would be beautiful. It's an abstraction on failure.

I want someting to record people with. I have empty shelves I could fill with discs of interviews. I'd need a typewriter to write up transcripts. "What's your best memory of your grandparents?" I'd ask my subjects. "When you're trying to make a pen work, what do you draw? Do you get premonitions? Who am I? Do you eat a lot of cheese? What kind of animal would you like to be?"

I've long fancied being a fruit bat. Bridget said I'd be an ocelot. I think she's an otter. Yesterday was about narwals and tomorrow's shaping up to be a panda. Today is an inchworm. Put your thumb and middle finger on a table and do the inch.

Don't you know,
After wiring the thing to explode
Wired for sound,
Wide awake here for days in a row
- The New Pornographers, "Sing Me Spanish Techno"