Cartographies

Early Spring

68 Early Spring March is a dangerous month. For two weeks it’s all tooth and tirade; for two more, it’s tongue-tied like a girl worshipping her mirror with swollen lips. Flesh and reflex wrestle daily at its frozen altar, davening to sunlight, that harbinger of winter’s undulant undoing. Green thumbs hitchhike upwards out of benumbed soil, and the goodly flies rouse themselves to a fluorescent buzzing. You see, there’s no such thing as a peaceful revolution here— just watch how pandemonium breaks out among the waking hormones, how clouds line up to flex their biceps, how the maples swoon like mermaids swept ashore half-naked. Every being is tantalized with being and feels immortal. March is more dangerous than the sirens’ call, its mouth gaping, its hoary heart timing itself to yours, its petticoats of ice melting, its white blouse slowly unbuttoning itself, its breath growing hotter and more uneven— its touch the tenderest of torments. ...