4:30by Emma Aylor I say all this to witness disappearance, to show you that I don't believe any more. I only believe in the man tuning our piano, his seersucker cheeks. Do you see these, his hair and stubble the colors of ridge-knifing rocks, his head tipped to catch pitches like gnats as he plods on the plangent keys again? He has flayed it; he pulls its ribs back to expose velvet like old photographs' red dresses, their pigments pressing through dust, to unwrap gold coils to straw and splinter. Love is bitter and all there is, Zelda said, and you know this to be true. I have had to show you. I tell you this to speak it. I tell you as I'd spit on the floor. |