:: Johannah Rodgers

two prose sestinas


Sentences

for Lynn Crawford

Where do you want to go today to avoid the snow? Maybe spend the day in
the bathroom making up stories from memory. Or about the things around
you, the bathtub and the way it curves like a run-on sentence. I´ve
never met anyone who actually spent time in the bathtub drinking tea.
But it seems like a good idea, particularly today, to sit in hot water
and hold a steaming hot cup. Tropical things and the seaside are much
on my mind and I wonder if people who live in the tropics find different
kinds of things exotic, for instance, twigs.

Sponges for the bathroom come in many shapes, like that of a fish or a
cat, or there are those natural sponges that look like sea flowers drawn
from memory. It might be nice to live underwater but hard there to
speak in complete sentences. Water would get in your nose and certain
things would become redundant, like drinking tea. People keep all kinds
of things in the bathroom, lotions, brushes, cups. Even plants, which
if woody enough and exposed to sunlight produce twigs. There is always
a lot of water in bathrooms but never any snow.

Of course spending too much time at home in the bathroom-or anywhere
for that matter-can seem like a punishment, like sitting out a
sentence. Judgement in such matters is self imposed, not handed down by
a real court or judge who sits in an office with walls the color of weak
tea. On those days when you must stay home because you are expecting a
telephone repairman or delivery of a package you might decide to do
something unusual like eat your lunch out of a cup. Or just eat
chocolate instead, the kind that comes in a white box, each piece the
shape of a twig. Chocolate can also come in bark form, at least the
kind that you serve when it is time for tea. Coffee is better with chocolate
than tea and you can serve your guests espresso or strong
coffee, just half a cup.

So far, I´m finding our conversation more wintry than tropical, all the
fault of the word twig. It´s not easy to write about brightly colored
fish when the ground is covered in snow. But you try to envision the
fish as you sit in your pink bathroom unaware that the act itself is
becoming a memory. And you´ll think back on it, when you´re talking to
someone about your winter vacation or a ski trip and it will come back
to you in total, like a complete sentence.

All along you´ve wondered why I have you sitting in the bathroom next to
the sink and the toothbrush cup. I decided to put you there and not
give you a name because I don't want you to get any ideas about moving
around too much or becoming inventive and making a broom from a bunch of
twigs. If you want to call yourself something, that´s fine, I might
suggest Snow. It is genderless and evocative of many things, though,
for me, mainly of a neighbor who had the same name, but that is a
distant memory. So now there is Snow in the bathroom, which until this
moment I did not think could be said in the same sentence. More than
words, it´s a fact as real as a sachet of tea.

In the morning you may begin to get hungry and I will bring you some
orange juice in a cup. It´s not good to have glasses in the bathroom
because they might shatter, being as delicate as brittle twigs. But
don´t worry, I´ll bring things for you, maybe even a pet bird, not a
parakeet, a songbird, perhaps a canary, which I don't think could
survive in the snow. You won´t be able to teach it to talk but you can
teach it tunes that it will store in its memory. When birds stop
singing it is a bad sign, a declaration, like a death sentence. That's
a depressing thought and I want to keep things light, as though we´re
chatting over a cup of tea. If you would like to change your name to
Hortense I will understand, even though it might be difficult to find
that name on a personalized cup.



In the Wilderness

We may not have access to things in cans, beans, milk, syrup, or fresh figs. But we will find
things to eat anyway. Things cannot be otherwise. You may like to think that the
wildnerness is one big hotel. It is not like that and you will figure this out for yourself
eventually.

Dirt can be used for many things, even, when mixed with water, as ink for a pen. If you
hand me that stick, the crooked one, you will see and then you too can try writing, with
the stick anyway. You will learn a new grammar here, one that you may not have
encountered otherwise. Words that might be a noun in your former experience
can become verbs, for instance, the word hotel. You´ll get the hang of it eventually. It is not
a game, it is an entirely new way of thinking, something radical, so let´s begin with this
pen. Fig fig fig fig. That is a sentence or what you used to call a sentence anyway. It is
easy and you´ll find that to be the case even if you may think otherwise.

You look like you once lived in a hotel. Your mother said that you would know
what to do with a pen. I´m sorry that you will no longer see her but you
must also realize that these things are of no importance anyway. In the month of May,
particularly, you must not think otherwise. That is the month when subjunctive
approximations of heartfelt feeling are transposed onto adjectives and certain words are
banned, such as hotel. These things change biannually but you must not worry because
we will provide you with all of the information you need eventually.

Canvas can also be used for creating sentences, when soaked and rolled tightly it will
approximate a pen. Writing implements occupy much time because the council has
lowered the age for scribal activity and singing the official song, "Anyway." The song
used to be heard quite frequently before the Fourth Insurgence, and the campaign to
destroy the hotel. Things will turn out for you eventually; even if there is no such thing as
a left-handed pen.



© Johannah Rodgers 2003