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Blockstarken On a visit to Germany, a woman read the word "Blockstarken" in the print of an old poster. She later learned there is no such word in the German language. They must have taken our breath with them, these words, now no more than the substance of feathers, husks of decrepit objects, dust you find in the crack of a leaf. Some, longer than was necessary, over the earth with their shadows, curved precisely and were never seen again. I suppose this is why we sometimes stop, look at the ground while talking, and why we'll need to talk louder as we go on, why the trees appear to hang there inhaling it all: what we are saying, what we are not saying as the blocks darken. Inside the snowflake right now languishing, wet, falling slowly, must be bits of old, lost conversation: two people on stools near the window, their lips moving, hands folded humbly under the table, or their hands moving like white fires. And probably what they are saying is what they will be saying as the breath goes out of them, before they've agreed on anything, before the soup comes. Who can say? Maybe we are surrounded by a music that remembers us. I don't know. I'm washing glasses and I get this word stuck inside my head that was buried in Germany like the jaw of the last man 28 to say it, and now he could very well be singing through the hollow wine glass as I let my finger slide cryptically around the rim. Blocks darken. Blocks darken but only in my own language. The single word for snow collects in the black notch of the single word for tree and out in the white shade a weathervane's tin scales start moving. Now a small gust is talking. Now something other than the rust it has become holds it together, keeps it up like a solitary partner waltzing. Tipping each wine glass upside down, I think, this could be my mother inside me or just boredom but I find myself singing this word immersed in its delicate nonsense. I find myself lining the glasses up while singing as if to keep my place in the universe in place. 29 ...

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