legerdemain;
(i know that sound—it’s the sound of a woman dancing.)
but i call it blue;
fog over the city. fog over istanbul.
you cannot fly in the sky because you cannot see the sky.
how do birds cope? do they pause, equating thickness with silence and death?
cutting through the air with a knife, red river.
half-days;
(i)
i do not know why i am looking at you. it is not a pleasure, it is not particular. it is just a necessary curiosity, a flipping through pages, a wondering though there is nothing to think about. i will never run into you. i will never see you beyond that which you share on the outskirts of your world: a trail waiting to be followed, a trail leading nowhere — no traps, not even an end, dead or otherwise. it is a common affliction, this curio-quest. observational anti-therapy. memory withdrawal. the art of looking awry, changing shapes, disfiguring. you will be forgotten the moment eyes shift or close. there is no object permanence here.
(ii)
display, dialogue, process, parody. next. thirteen lines, twelve words.
(iii)
i once knew someone, the way we all know someone, at some point in time. whenever this person laughed, i did not understand; it bewildered me. his laughter was entirely foreign to me. this surprised me as i have an easy laugh; i find humour in the uncommon, the laborious, the inane. i told myself that strangers are only strange until you get to know them. i therefore went on a quest to prove myself right, and i became acquainted with him. sadly, from that point forward, whenever he laughed, i wanted to cry. this may be why i only once knew him, and know him not still.