Death of a Ventriloquist

Inspiration

17 Inspiration Ye blind guides, which strain at a gnat, and swallow a camel. –Matthew 23:24. Sudden as the swoop that lifts from grass at once, a flash of white under-feathers in sun— follow its path, watch the landing and scribble down the thumping in your throat—find where swallow began: its tiny muscles of flight that link in our mouths to Philomel, Puffer fish, blood of Christ. Not the sugar-fed metaphor sipped from a goblet, no, metal and salt, tasted from the brow. Fact is you swallow the lure, hook and cackle—projected self, protected—and learn your part so well words rise from the low gullet before you can wish them off. A tire bobs near where water disappears under limestone, swallowed by earth, and Job stands next to a pit he can’t see the bottom of. He tried to force the camel down: 18 fur, femur, and teeth. And the drunks in your family—they thought swallowing seven mugs a night was a way to forget; they forgot each ounce enters the blood, each sip leaves evidence. Then there is the Black Swallower prowling for fish twice its size, which it downs by opening a hinge and pulling the prey in with teeth. It swallows to cause its own splitting. ...