It must be a fragile chain. Or so I thought of my maternal, in the way one can think about things so they fit into the existing contours: neat and without blistering the edges, and like a babe born with horns, I grasp the yes to justify the wound of the no. A fragile chain, coursing through women who duck their shoulders, who sketch worlds in the veil of a shadow and toss them in the same movement. I did not want to question, as it aches the way I feel this maternal shrink and liquify into a small upstream to infect my own circuitry, and the way I feel a man with buckles on his shoes take giant steps forward out of my chest and into the room with a fist. But years pass and on this day I question to bring about a metanoia. And I am washed, and it is holy. The chain is not just fragile, not just breaking in all of its length and width - it is not, it is not. You can take your hands and grab it and feel it, and you can pull all the way through time, kneeding its strength and weight and girth, then feel the stretches where it whittles to a string that cuts into your skin. It is a chain with decisions to make, a baby on her arm. A chain under siege, and like an axon in flames. And it travels all the way to a piece of land with olives and lemons, wrapping around a graphite pencil as sunlight hits the house cat just right. And when I arrive, I am shown the dream.

Your voice rose from the yard, I was soaking in the tub. Reading Kafka on the Shore, I'm a horny installation, and I wonder who you are. And how you got here. Where you reach for me, with shackles, arms stretched and heavy over oysters you say you are 9 years delayed. And all I want is to be adored for no reason at all, because there is no greater feeling than particular adoration. I look down, the bathwater prunes me and the bubbles disappear. The shape I make is a refillable hole, the shape you make is a diamond with the right light.

I still look for the shapes you would make, and still, time doesn’t seem to work in any sort of way. And walls that we build to hold our own, they go on and melt in the fire. So, I’m watching for you in a flame, and I have to let this tiny violence go and go. And this is the life they say is only ever unknown, I let it go, it goes. So, I love the amnesia -- what a life. I love the amnesiac, please, stay the night.

Please let the world hassle you.