to lucille.

yes it can be said that all of the books on the mantle are dying but can it be understood? how do we know that the soft inner workings of voltaire and wheatley (one in the same) have long resembled their hard bindings and are at risk of crumble? that the notes we've jotted in the margins of avicenna and hesse are mourning as they lie next to the remains of whatever passage on such and such page, following chapters to their death like obedient shabti, expected to serve in the afterlife. but there's no use explaining it to you again, lucille, the books are dying and that's that. when we are alone i wonder what is wrong with your kidneys such that you sometimes smell like fart and the farts always like tea and yams and thick plastic smoke from the cigarettes and your town. i wonder where is the air really fresh and how long can you live there? because to be fair, i never really felt home here. i notice the soft yellow paint peeling down around us as we boil eggs in the kitchen and i can tell the kitchen is taking great pleasure in boiling us. how can you ignore it so well, lucille? Its like ether that has made you gay and light and swollen like i never knew you. like i couldn't see through you and all those white boys you used to entertain with your deliberately dark nipples and nina fingers. i saw it. but i just cut your hair and let you have your fun. we walk outside to get coffee in the cold sunshine. and i imagine we're skipping town on foot. you lock the door (because i never remember to) and sneak us out of the house like smut lit from the university library, just us two sisters, addicted to playing at freedom. a cat is masturbating in the sidewalk sun stage and i am laughing thinking about labradors chewing like labradors. yes the sun is amazing. it turns dirt into swallows. or jays. i don't care because their trajectory finally makes itself into your brown smile. and that doesn't last long because some neoliberal asshole is quietly objectifying both of us at the intersection, slowing down to exact his privileged gaze. how quickly that smile turns to fuck you. i think i'm gonna order a latte. you know i missed you hard lucille, we were always picking carnations for our dirty (kinky) hair, always faking contractions in our speech. there were steel toed boots in our brains always ready to fuck shit up. ain't it true ceely baby? how we made each other up one time and never forgot the story? how one year turned into two lifetimes? sometimes i break character and laugh too hard at our game but you gotta admit the shit is funny. yes luce, the books are long dead by now, still standing slowly and purposefully above the fireplace even as i remember to jot down the date for my records. i flip through the account for comfort, to remind myself that i've been through this before. there's the green ink on the third of january reminding me of the date i found my favorite book dead. bringing back the relief i felt as i dutifully returned the earmarks to their original corner and dusted the sun-faded jacket to prepare for a proper viewing. sometimes i'm sorry you don't see the books dying too. actually i'm quite glad we are outside because i don't like to stick around for the final moments, listening to the familiar sounds of death that still make my stomach turn. it hurts but when i point it out, i know you are just hearing titles. oh ceel, remember that night we cried and snorted and screamed in the streets thinking about crazy dead white men who knew nothing about the metaphysics of being a brown woman or doublespeak or any of that other shit. i think there was snow on the ground and the skin on my toes had turned purple and hard listening to our palaver. the point is we decided that that life is the real reason we are geniuses, and now i think you were giving me the only truth you had when you said no one fucks like a sagittarius. girl you ain't never lied. it is nice to be outside visiting with you, smelling like yams and cigarette smoke. you are raising hell in the antique store, still uncomfortable with your power, and some thoughts come into my mind that make me smile, imagining you young and old and older, still talking like an anarchist still talking like a sister still talking like a friend.

I

First one must recognize the dryness, the dusty orange dryness which descends regularly upon the bodies and down around ashen ankles to the grasses and to the feet where it hangs solemn and unyielding for the ladybirds and grasshoppers to maintain healthy cosmologies. to shout and dance in atavistic glee, for the dryness always comes and sits and waits hanging atop the grasses, quiescent and grave and this is what we know. So we stand naked in the fields each night waiting to be washed dark and dry, keeping step with these feet creatures, who laugh and call us clumsy to our backs but remind sweet things to our faces just in case we have anything to do with the orange dust we all dance underneath each night. The beetles do not know that we are just as dust fearing, and perhaps it is better that they do not ask, for it could very well be the case that it is these tiny feet creatures who call the dust each night in that special language they speak. and who can be sure, really, what the tiny ones would do if they knew they had such power so it is best to forget that we do not know. it is best to dance lightly and to rejoice in the bronze silt that makes its way down and falls upon us each dusk. the dryness that nests in our hair and leaves a burnt glow on our night skin running down our throats killing voices. it deadens the sounds of our step and renders the world noiseless while our bodies dance in quiet unrest, throwing our heads back, bending and unbending the knees in slow, deliberate patterns [like the crickets have shown us]. Sometimes a child missteps and falls into the world of the tiny ones where he is received, taught a new step and then returned upright to continue the dance. We take note, and adjust accordingly.