Scared Text

THE UR-MANE

 MIRROR SEED The sky divided and so did I. I watched my mirror seed a cloud. The house rained. Identical heads echoed. A dead oud’s resonance cloned the first presence. An apple in the attic developed a tree. I felt the sun. I fell into an open field. The clone smiled. I have never seen a clone smile. His snails grew fur.The closest ant grafted the smoke with sand.This is the first piece of wood. This is the first piece of glass. Clouds arranged them behind dead doves.The membrane’s séance broke.The doves died again.The dead doves reset. I arranged them into flowers. I have never seen a flower. I have never seen a dove. The sky and its stills mated. I have never played an oud. I have never said Bird. O snail, I heard outside. When the first dove died, the ouds ate apples. I died too. My glass fermented opals. The second séance failed, my fur glued to flowers. I have never seen a cloud. I have never looked down. The organ smoked. The clone strummed. I fled, immersed in flames. The mirror chimed. Dove. Oud. Field. The bloomed membrane’s array split. Inside, the blanks bred herds.  A DELPHI Minus tried to write his own bible. It began, So what, saliva. So what, milk. Iris told us her dad died in space. The whited-out vowels rang in my ears. Stupid moon. Stupid burned-up blind spot. The doctors said his name had burned up.We never knew how it sounded. * The city refused to see my brother. He banged out his nerves on birthdays. I use years, and they remember. This was in the annex of the indivisible. Escape your leaves, Minus said. I said, I have never used camouflage. It felt so good to lie, all that noise loosening inside me. I like lies. * The burned-up hills had grown more graceful. I like hills.  They feel like hands. * When I wasn’t looking Iris re-named her tongue. Hey, Solo Swarm. Her questioning pulled. Why are you always floating? She said she tried to sign my name but the ink was immature. Stupid minutes. * The city wasn’t looking.This city wasn’t old enough to look. The city said, This city isn’t old enough to say. * Minus told me not to breathe when the doctors floated by. He sat on the floor and covered his mouth. I hid behind the blinds. This was in the entrance of the opposite pharmacy. ...