magnoliaison

Is there, under my lame tongue, a word that means the milk-sweet smell of my child's hair from those first days when we thought we'd remember everything? A word that brings the plunge of blood from head to groin during that first kiss? Is it enough to know that they existed, holding the empty word like a vial whose perfume has dried up? [...] I sing myself to sleep with ABC and cling to the useful letters that spell milk and kiss, knowing they'll feed me when there is nothing else.

So many days like flaring cinders in an uncle's bleak periphery, like duets in hawthorn shade or conspiratorial archeology. We examined the samples. We yanked the dumbwaiter's rope. No one spoke of cirrus clouds or uncouth implements unleashed upon the meadow. There was much to do. The sagebrush swayed. What did Alice say to Edgar? It wasn't time to yield but to focus.

And I’m not sorry you’re here and in front of me and breathing and eating. If you’re Bacchus, where’s my wine? Where were you when I was naked, offering a thousand dinners in my tiny kitchen? How’s my birthday lamb? Oh, brutal. Delicious.

“Her ears tune down to the lowest frequencies. The tree is saying things, in words before words. It says: Sun and water are questions endlessly worth answering. It says: A good answer must be reinvented many times, from scratch. It says: Every piece of earth needs a new way to grip it. There are more ways to branch than any cedar pencil will ever find. A thing can travel everywhere, just by holding still. The woman does exactly that. Signals rain down around her like seeds.