Trans

Prelude

Prelude We bring to our booth pages packed full of subject and verve blood and tissue, the nutshells of her history sharp under her elbow as she leans hard, the full weight of her language on this vision or that one, and take in the full length of our throats swallowing, breathing air we share with fifty others, the smells of ripening toast in the chrome slots, and we breathe out tone, shading, the shouts necessary for our Mondaymorning before light streaks the sky, before the curtains close against the glare for patrons in the next booth, and thewhole world opens ... For weeks, staticy news over the sink as each night at the open refrigerator I transport, unwrap, scrub, pare and transform food for the family body. Oh, Child-Godwho pushes across the glass table top the sharp clatter, the ruckus of our lives blocks of Legos, steel gas tubes torn across at the throat bysome torque from a machine too terrible to posit now, at this table rinsed by the kind and disinfectant cloth ... 30 Trained bycustom to serve I set down the burden of dinner wash my hands and begin to eat the onlypossibility,finally, turning away from the heat reliable torque of hip socket and ribs allowing the swivel my bodymakes to sit down or reach for the phone, gut courage, to climb on the plane, transfer, hoisting luggage into the overheadbins, and arrive at your side, child, in time for your long surgery to come tomorrow and I'll be there, your mother, where I belong the old miracle of your birth belief enough to see us through cut and clamp, the blood price I signed to pay, and will, and will myself onto the plane with books and cash, pastilles, ribbons, cashmere socks, spare eyeglasses and ribs, hip bones, reliable bone sockets, and every recipe intact or documented, soft sacs bathed reliable tongue tucked up into the silence broken by onlyone word, love, one phrase, you can, one other, I'm here, child, your absolute company as youarechanged - radically - from one thing to another 3i ...