one long sentence assignment (2007?)
I need to tell the world, in no uncertain terms, what I feel about it (though I use the term “world” I mean much more than the physical place, the life on or in it, and the atmosphere around it, but also everything in all directions–infinitely) and I hope you’ll excuse me but I have only the vibrations between tangible things to translate this intangible affection (affect-infection?)–and I am trying to avoid being too sappy (I’m always that or too critical) when I attempt to analyze this love that comes in awful pangs—those honeyed nerves stringed to a heart that is sickeningly caramelized for all of this (and so much more): six tiny ants on a peony bud, the starving blond grass under the kiddie pool, the first cigarette on an interstate drive, the Virgin Mary manifested in a sidewalk gum splotch, a teen mother giving birth in the potato-chip aisle, the haunting guttural music descending from the mountains (and the brave curiosities who people the South), recognizing a name on a library card, the woods with occasional strange furniture (stuffed chairs rotting to the springs), caterpillars in the one-twigged world we offer, a sea- horse doing it’s little love-dance (tail curled around some Japanese sea plant, eye level at the Aquarium), the soothing voice of a documentary narrator (concerned and thorough, explaining the problem), a jellyfish intricate and brainless (the beautiful ghost of identity crisis–when I finally lose touch I wouldn’t mind becoming a jellyfish), imagining an underground society that meets in empty old laundromats, old people who can’t sleep unless the TV’s on, convicts with frontal lobe damage and sad childhoods, meek girls with their four-poster bed and their horse calendars, the little cells of an orange slice, a burning sparkler so hot near the hand, the involuntary nestling of head into pillow, the mass of humanity silhouetted around you in the brighter shots of a movie, the polite muffling of coughs, my fifth grade teacher with lipstick on her teeth, the gravel in a skinned knee, a corn field at 4 AM (as seen through spread fingers, out the window at 35 MPH), a dignitary tripping on the corner of the carpet, doll parts in the hobby shop, two white horses standing back to back in the dark, fuzzy violets, children who will hold a funeral for a fallen robin’s egg or a mouse, the smell of a church basement (mildew and perfume), all of the foreigners I try to imagine in my mind–always in their prospective costumes (frozen in various stages of activity–scenes which I have fused from bits of history lessons and product advertisements), and people displaying all their crap on the lawn for a yard sale and other people coming to look at their crap in an exercise of sweet vulnerability (so to this list of Things About the World Which I Hope Are Being Permanently Recorded and Appreciated, I can now add: creepy knickknacks, slightly used cologne, treadmills, collections of commemorative plastic cups, skis, and mounted animal heads abandoned in the wake of pop culture’s home makeover shows)—you can see where I’m going with this.
