The man is trying to find something holy and all he can find is cat dust and broken flower stems. The man keeps asking why the ground is full of glass when you dig.
We try to tell the man that the glass is what makes the patterns spackle and pirouette in evening's wayward sunbeams but the man is not concerned about the patterns on the ground, all the man wants to do is dig. Keep digging in the broken earth and cut the palms of his hands and then tell us all it was inevitable, his palms are soft.
We others stand around holding our own soft palms in each other and say yes, but look, the sun. We stand in the tatters of the day.
He holds up his palms and they bleed the tears of a thousand Catholic statues and we look in our purses for silk scarves to bind him but he says no. He says can't you see the glass, can't you see that everything is broken?
I look at the ground and the only glass I can see is the finest ground glass, a glass so soft it is sand beneath my toes. In this sunlight the sand is warm and I would like to lie down for a while and listen for the lapping of water, but the man is still shouting.
The man does not understand why I can't see what is so clearly all around us.
I want to explain to him that under the microscope blood is a universe of tiny pink donuts, flowers of cherry blossom, but my words are too fine or too fat for his ears.
The man is so loud and so certain.
I let my body sink and it is all the satisfaction of plunging a hand into grain.
The man is already leaving so I start to make breaststroke motions with my arms and move through this ocean. I swim slowly, unconvinced of the wisdom of distant shores. It is pretty here. The sun pirouettes on the ground.
We try to tell the man that the glass is what makes the patterns spackle and pirouette in evening's wayward sunbeams but the man is not concerned about the patterns on the ground, all the man wants to do is dig. Keep digging in the broken earth and cut the palms of his hands and then tell us all it was inevitable, his palms are soft.
We others stand around holding our own soft palms in each other and say yes, but look, the sun. We stand in the tatters of the day.
He holds up his palms and they bleed the tears of a thousand Catholic statues and we look in our purses for silk scarves to bind him but he says no. He says can't you see the glass, can't you see that everything is broken?
I look at the ground and the only glass I can see is the finest ground glass, a glass so soft it is sand beneath my toes. In this sunlight the sand is warm and I would like to lie down for a while and listen for the lapping of water, but the man is still shouting.
The man does not understand why I can't see what is so clearly all around us.
I want to explain to him that under the microscope blood is a universe of tiny pink donuts, flowers of cherry blossom, but my words are too fine or too fat for his ears.
The man is so loud and so certain.
I let my body sink and it is all the satisfaction of plunging a hand into grain.
The man is already leaving so I start to make breaststroke motions with my arms and move through this ocean. I swim slowly, unconvinced of the wisdom of distant shores. It is pretty here. The sun pirouettes on the ground.
