Master:

Now we huddle in wet blankets. The fires madeare sufficient, less delicate. It began as you said it would:

immediate darkness. Then the world fell asa sea upon us: womb askance, a whale eye thunder-

thickened. Waterglass plumes steeped in nickelspiraled through canyon walls until a breath could not be

caught until we heaved from the sea, gasping, lungssliced into gills. Staffs of light broke across the plum

knee of sky and we trembled, still in possessionof our skins still in possession of these shells

around our necks. We muddled through this craw and crayobedient to each specific horror as it appeared: pig’s

head hanging, gale gory-eyed push of mire, stutterof the ravaged greens, planked iron bodies, buttressed

spines, wolf bending to the soft bleat of boy. Sufficientlyin awe, we filled our mouths with ashes, singed our backs

in all places not yet singed. But it has been one yearnow since the falling and frankly we have grown

impatient. Tired of our seaside wraith-walks, of the grayand double-gray, of the zirconium murmurs at our throats.

Are we remembered? Please say we are remembered saywe are the cut upon the inside of your cheek, the small

chip of iron your tongue starts to. At the very least, bringthe second round upon us so that in that edgeless asylum,

word-bleached and dumbstruck, beside chipped cup andscythe, we can reach for you, and you can be our claw

into the bottom mud, our shush cover of gravesongwith wing. Now, as I have said, we huddle in wet blankets.

Still they are wet and still we huddle, rootless, trying to conjure,at the very least, your visage in the flame. To be forgotten is not

to endure. Let us tusk the labyrinth inside you.Let us be the blue flag raised firmly through your throat.