:: Joanna Sondheim
pages from The Fit
(The Fit is forthcoming from Sona Books.)
Various, the things that come down with the wind. In haste: interruptions or intrusions. This time it was 3a.m. or possible mid-afternoon, late morning, slippery that, lighting carries over. Shifting, she stumbles, glances sinkhole, I play dead, turn sideways, stare at the edge of the bench. Sans intro there is little to say, rub and lick the palms, fingernails fit and click, chip at wooden slats, collide. She slams down beside, pulls strings from her pockets, beseeching our last latch. It´s really too bad I stray out, confront abdominals, Santa Anas, lashes crinkling closed.
I imagine tantrums, fight furious, swing out midnight. Saying what, etc., in sleep no lack of exchange. While she ignites silent, I animate lists, scanning backwards. Still, so, my face against a dark glass, thumb-like cheek prints. Not specific the object of sentiment, twisting I´ve explained figure to no avail. Regardless, nervous at curbside she boasts feats and maims napkins. I remember when such things made sense. This time around I focus on the miniscule, tire prints and such, the way machines follow each other down a road.
Mostly I´m inundated with stitching, denim scratching against itself at the ankle. She flicks brown leaves from her side, wailing across concrete they land with a thud. I think catastrophic scrape my elbow, explain meandering emotion in fragments. Fewer days spent
in . . . memory of rough hands moving fast below the eyes, when I looked down they were covered in salt-water, I couldn´t recall crying but instead insisted on an arid state.
This time it´s pterodactyl grace, steps in circles, the concave spine. Our chronology proves this faulty. I want to explain this but will the arch further inward, indulge vertebrae as a direction of course. I console myself a curling story, she throws shadow, rises lonesome, details a path of defenestration. Or was this my certain whimsy. In one chapter I imagine our bench slipping easily through her fingers. The way it might settle and all the shapes my face could take. In such an instance I would lace conclusions in seconds, casting our narrative stunted.
:
Dear ---
Has it occurred that events pummeled into mismatch only after the disarmament of our essays? Once fractionated to flesh, content devalued. I found outbursts frivolous, how different from our salient misfits and outpours, our long distance etching of marvels. Instead of viewing sleepless undereyed, vision detailed a crafty spiraling. I wrote that I stayed late to think clear, you wrote the same, rewording ecstatic.
A fire we saw splitting an apartment. We stood awed, clutched hands and quiet moved onward. The following day a series on dysfunction, you said reveling I recalled glass littering the street, the way people ran in and out of windows. At moments like these, when everything is in disarray. Indulging mobility in teetering time. Within, movement intoned claustrophobic dulling.
Once severed from text we attempted a verbal arrangement. Films lay foreground and forecasted an engaging script. You asked for repetition in conversation, scribbled hasty reminders for reference. In place of physical we passed notes, dainty descriptions of our focused dailies. Not understanding where to place what without scripted, we shuffled frequent mishaps with a cohesive body, preferred the breakdown to the actual event.
:
Upon returning to her room I found things askew, poltergeist or memory, unfitting and whittling at shelves and cloth. She modeled frozen, cross-legged mid-bed, encircled blankets, arranging vetoes as false votes. Obvious but not deposited, out of the corner of her eye I think I rested sideways, but this without document, lithe like, but for no reason, I mean to say, without movement.
Skilled in looking and scaling, she transcribed, listless, my aimless eye. Accustomed to tracking her patterns I assumed whatever projection she offered. Turned screenwise to watch, fascinated. Lame faced she smoothed undocumented words, typed in my hand, pressed out a simpler storyline. Mid-dream when a ghost stands on your chest you wake paralyzed and in the seconds before it slips away it seems even your breath has been suspended.
:
The prior pickling: they lean heavily on the stitching, morning, yesterday, another´s hair wore itself a lighter shade, she breathes in the change, comments appropriately. Wavering through desk papers she cascades her own hair to drift along the shoulder, divines processes of elimination, one strand at a time. Further down the table, another taps pencils instinctively, in awe she wraps garlands around the lead, fuses bone billowing and vice to create intention.
I deemed metal containers sustainable visions. In particular copper creamers, flipping lids for moments, she stared wide-eyed, entranced. She explained she could watch for hours, the way the tips of the fingers advanced anticipated toppling. She fell crippling for objects, the story behind each or impetus towards touch. In retrospect I fled opposite, sat frequent for the view without accessory, tantamount to a shrug, the way things flew distant.
© Joanna Sondheim 2004