494

I will speak it in a thousand voices and we will forgive ourselves of every word to come before it. Through this absurd gesture, this folly that merits the impossible truth, this séance with the universe…

500

VAINGLORIOUS INTERLUDE

They say the writing’s on the wall and forget to mention that it’s in your handwriting, which invariably, could use more practice.

Rare was the streak of foresight made awful in that I was a child then burdened with its measure—this prescience into penmanship and the robes of scrivenry confined my childhood hand to the penned anatomy of an alphabet. Having dodged quizzical glances into the corner of every room, practiced away my youth into the shape of every letter, ductus remains my boastful claim to existence.

Behold the livelihood of the beasts! Aa Bb Cc Dd drawn on the chimera of a baseline Ee Ff Gg hooked and curling, dipping below the imaginary line, making the imaginary real, as letters too have tails.

You lettered creatures. When I compare our lives, mine amounts to a punctus gone astray from an i.

501

RATS

Feast on the rats

they breed with the sun

to burn a star first

at the tail end of being

a word in reverse.