WHAT IF LETHE

3 8 Y W H A T I F L E T H E J O H N A L L M A N came first, undoing preceded doing, nothing not empty, its song unhearable, though it’s there, because nothing is not unbusy – the slack in a smile, the silence that whistles day and night in the ear, the twitter of wrens where their house sways in the pine that will split in half next winter, their eggs with nowhere to go in spring, which is what came first, nowhere to go, no twigs to make a nest, no height to be safe on, until you look down, where you didn’t know you were above anything at all, where nothing gapes, shadowy lips a circumference you not only see but speak through, because all feeling is transparent, your words the empty space the breath blows through, and here, right here, an awareness of scented light, a pool of events that will happen where nothing can be explained. ...