Small Interiors
by Jodie Sherman
See
la
si, la siempra in her head, now-Raquela's voice interrupting this vigil...
tooo. where'd she leave off/
all
denial that life might not be a linear thing of some biochemical chronology...
says,
"nothin'
but the time takes it to get you there, la..."
about
life, she's talkin now. still.
"and
what's growin old too, around you..." she says. "and in
you,///" she says, and what only grows steely in him... &
whether he represents," er um... "any thread of outside-no-external...
influence?" i can see her smilin' here... flayed plum skins now
parting her teeth... "y'know i mean if he is to you then la, the
'outside world' la... don't think it's worth your sacrifice,
la.
He'll never
get through, la, never get over, la
not it, la, or her la or, la, or you
yeah\"
Raquela's
image paddles away then, /y'know-that duck might be somebody's
other 'n all... ha ha,,, i am so fucking funny...\
Here
only raquela's ethereal voice remains/the pictures sailing in, now out
of la siempra's mush-melon head. It sayin' over heaved breath... "my
god, honey, an there ain't nothing consistent or full of any lasting logic...
everything changes, la, but some things just don't/till they perish, la.//see/"
The visual returning, smoothing my hair... showing me now her half-pealed
plum... "everything gonna be changin/even the way that you reason...
cuz
it's cause
and effect, so the trappings can change... yeah. But only the trappings
can change-"
"Raquela,
raquela... That does not follow!! There's a flaw in this non-reasoning,
raqi buenosueno... a hole in this matrix of thing
somewhere...
THIS
is not an if/then statement you're making...
not
an if/then affair..."
course,
i don't say this to here in the process.../just listening, now, just recalling.
These open seams of recalling...
& How funny
that nothing is black and nothing is white, and even when it
thinks it is either...
seemin
so void of emotion all weighted & gauged with those things quantitatively
reasoned... (hah!)
oh
mahnnn...
The
Raquela voice, my companion in this lot/rings soft the dove coos and dull
glow of obelisk moons/varied and many in the wee-morning sky...
She
sayin, "guess that's the string you gonna keep pullin on all your
life till the plug gives, see... You can think anything all you want, but
when you blink and it is sooooo
gone, " she says.
it's
vapor, la.
just
vapor...
this
lifetime's a vapor la...
La Siempra relivin' the plum tree talk
&
there raquela peeling the remainder of skin from the flesh of dropped fruit.../
the
inner fleshes fully exposed by the end...
what
a sweet sad woman that raquela is...
La
Siempra snaps to 'fore she trips off the platform...
step
three...
ahhh
strange sober moments of unsolicited
enlightenment,
nearly
plummeting the la freak to a certain demise, or something.
All
of these threads come together now sudden/smack me into this painful aware
that i'm/she's not so much "too big a drink of water,"
no. more like
just muddied water that no one can drink for too long-
&
then, if you ask ms. raquela...
'don't amount to very much ever anyway...
even
knowing...
"Dammit, Raquela!! Does it not matter you mighta learned something.
Does that not matter too? Oh man." And what did raquela say then...
nothing/nothing.
just sails away___________________________________
___________________________________
____"Too many complications," jollo says, i think..
(i think it was jollo...)
all
pompous in his denouement... where he's got it all drawn up to conclusion
'fore 'e says it, "just too much thickness," he says. "Can't
even see what i'm drinkin no more...//from the sludge coag at your shaker
bottom ... spikes from his face growing thicker with words
so
thick,
la
siempra, see/i/ see!!! i can barely now see who he is...
"of
sediments," these are whispers to his phantom,
'm tryin' a perish the bent to finish his thought/
but/continue
i do
anyway...
"unsettled/before
you reach that elliptical end-
oh jollo..."
LA
SIEMPRA, SHE-I WAS CRYIN' THEN:
"BUT IT'S NOT THAT COMPLICATED!!
I'M
NOT THAT COMPLICATED...
Ohhhh-uhhhh
expletive
expletive, vain and profane...
ohhhh
man
stop.
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