It Was a Church Then, and: The Vowels Feel Like Sunrays …

137 ENDI BOGUE HARTIGAN IT WAS A CHURCH THEN It was a church then it was a barn with church windows then it was a photograph of a church-turned-barn. It was a photograph of the church-turned-barn no longer standing and the standing of the boy who just woke beside the photo. It was a day then it was a church. A boy wakes and feeds his golden fish. It was a barn then it was a boy imagining barns. I was standing in the barn which was a church which was myself within a golden fish. I woke then fed the boy. It was a photograph of ghost towns then it was the ghost of the fish in the sand of waking. We played “ghost fish” by empty ponds. It was a church then it was the ghost of the heat of the church. A barn is warmer than I am. The fish are the temperature of a church. It was a boy with boy windows then it was a year with churchwindows . The whole building fell and had to swim its beams like ghosts. It was a church then it was the fear of not having a church, so it was the building of the church, the feeding of the fish. No it was a barn. 138 ENDI BOGUE HARTIGAN THE VOWELS FEEL LIKE SUNRAYS . . . The vowels feel like sunrays, or complaint, the consonants like buttons. The larynx can’t decide on actual larks or towns or heartaches, physical sounds are physical songs or yelps or cries. Babies suddenly are everywhere around all coo and cry and eyes that spill expanse. The baby’s larynx can’t decide whether to laugh or fuss, she’s at the cusp but looks at auntie. I dreamed the ocean white-cap pocked in which I feared my son would swim. I dreamed the ocean then I said it. 139 The larynx can’t decide whether the language of larks has wrung out pain the brain is like this too. The vowels feel like babies coughing, consonants like whitecaps. If you can sing your way forth you can unsing it too. I loved even the cries of the baby her voice half formed having cried in h’s and u’s. Ocean suddenly say man-of-war or forward or new. ...