Thousand: Seven Hundred Ninety-Five

a provincial eye that sees us so. What is the difference between a gnome in a gazebo and a leprechaun in a gazebo? The gnome brings tea. Once upon a time there was dog. The dog died. Although the death of the dog had been predicted for several weeks, had, indeed, been placed on the calendar a few days prior and notification had been sent out, and the dog had only really been alive because machines plugged into the wall were doing the job the dog’s internal organs, including its brain, had given up on, it was an occasion accompanied

Thousand: Seven Hundred Ninety-Four

Maybe somebody will see the words, tracing on the air. Perhaps if it’s cold enough thoughts will burl up into clouds and if it gets a little colder they’ll precipitate out as rain or a little colder yet and they’ll sift softly down as snow. Each crystal unique. There’s my originality. Variations on a theme. We dissolve into the systems of the world, the stars, the universes without number, and the next thing is made from the last. We are all constructed of used parts. If we look totally new, as nothing yet seen on earth or in heaven, it’s

Thousand: Seven Hundred Ninety-Three

myths and legends around goats, lions, and snakes, and in a way that is, perhaps, both hilarious and terrifying, tying them all together? Or is its maker merely lazy, mixing together things at hand both obvious and easy? Tyrannosaurus Rex didn’t know the feathers that made her pretty would one day help a bird fly. I don’t know if my babbling will one day feed intestinal flora, saving the lives of millions of chordates. If you babble under water do you bubble? And when each word breaks the surface does its meaning dance away over the swamp like a will-o’-the-wisp?

Thousand: Seven Hundred Ninety-Two

out of the alternatives, grabbing one history from this dimension and grafting it to another in the dimension just behind or above or the one that leaks in sometimes and looks like it’s going to take over and does or doesn’t, depending on local circumstance. I don’t know if I am creating or collaging. Is a chimera, with a head sneaked from a lion’s corpse sewn to the goat body trucked from the abattoir, a snake stapled to the ass to make a lashing tail, is this creature a creation or theft? Is its maker witty, alluding to the various

Thousand: Seven Hundred Ninety-One

the director? Or the key grip? A best boy would come in handy right about now. I suppose I should tell you the girl does see movement in those shadows. I suppose I should tell you that movement is the twitching of a giant spider’s leg or a leprechaun scratching a crusty chin. But it doesn’t matter. If it were an angel taking off its fingers, dusting them, then clicking them back into their sockets, it would be the same thing. You’ll have to forgive me. Sometimes I can’t take the responsibility of telling myself all the things I’m making up

Thousand: Seven Hundred Ninety

the button she’s pushing the cat’s nose, numbers appearing as pupils in the googly white eyes. She’s turned the sound off, otherwise she would be listening to its jaunty chimes and encouraging ejaculations like, “You’re the cat’s meow!” and “Polly want a cracker, just kidding, I mean, catting!” The girl feels like she’s on a movie set. If she kicked real hard her foot would go right through these stone walls, their age painted on sculpted foam over plywood. She glances up to the shadows just inside the entrance where the line terminates. The glint of a camera lens? Where’s

Thousand: Seven Hundred Eighty-Nine

to walk down the hall, the fountain burbling away down at the end, Jesus at her side going on about how God wants this and God needs that. The women in line sigh also, a mixture of anger and resignation, of course, and the bravest or weariest grumble more loudly than they really should. One of the older of the younger girls sneaks a peek at a battery-operated digital watch the shape of an orange cartoon cat, pushing a black button to check not only the time but the time before time and the time before the time before time,

Thousand: Seven Hundred Eighty-Eight

saying, gesturing at a young woman who, though veiled from head to toe, is clearly voluptuous and fine of face (or, at least, of eyes, with a demure nose that holds the lightweight veil from falling against her lips). The guardian of the gate is tired of hearing it. “God favors her, can’t you see?” Jesus says. “God wants you to let her through. And without God, without doing what God tells us, where would we be?” The guardian smiles a cold indifferent smile and with a sigh pushes herself from her chair. Lurching on her cane, the woman begins

Thousand: Seven Hundred Eighty-Seven

never mattered in the first place. Still, I’ve heard the tiniest effects add up over the great expanses of time involved in universes. I’m the proof, I suppose, although in my case, it takes several trillion alternate universes with convenient connections via a strategically discarded transdimensional shift. That plus God. You really can’t do anything without God. Ask Jesus. Here. Let’s listen in a moment. Jesus is talking to the woman who reviews the applications at the women’s gate of that mysterious city (castle?) in the desert accessible only by camel caravan or angelic transport. “Let her in,” Jesus is

Thousand: Seven Hundred Eighty-Six

and the gaudy fans of butterfly wings as they get all orgy and interspecies. Now, i suppose if people really had generalizable principles instead of situational ethics some few of you might gasp and swear never again to expose your children to such pornography. Or something. I don’t know. Am I supposed to understand? Have you ever seen angels fucking? It’s not how they reproduce. But you can never put anything past an angel. I don’t know if there are more angels than there ever were. I think they just split into ever thinner and more attenuated versions of what

Thousand: Seven Hundred Eighty-Five

to get all the way, to get it done. Flowers need butterflies as sexual partners. The butterfly sticks her tongue way down into the flower and sucks up the sugar water the flower has stored especially to tempt butterflies to land on and walk all over their sexual parts thus picking up and dropping off the powdery sperm-equivalent of the botanical world. And we love to watch. I mean, people do. Don’t they? Take big colorful photos and print them out poster-sized and tack them up on the wall and ooh and ah over the great flagrant colors of flowers

Thousand: Seven Hundred Eighty-Four

Butterflies are the reproductive stage of caterpillars. Butterflies are like the flowers of caterpillars. You know how some plants flower, go to seed, and drop dead? Butterflies are like that, or rather, caterpillars are like that, looking all vigorous and perpetual, but then, just at its peak, a caterpillar hardens into what is surely nothing other than a bud, which is confirmed by the subsequent blossoming into a lovely object everybody admires, including other butterflies. Butterflies fucking are like flowers fucking. Which, what am I talking about, is what flowers are all about anyway, right? Lotsa flowers gotta use bugs

Thousand: Seven Hundred Eighty-Three

A butterfly wobbles in, all colors spilled and splashed and folded. The butterfly transits the world, almost landing on the horn of the first angel, almost touching down on the big red comb of angel number two, dancing seductively around the pewter cowboy like a veil just starting to slip from a nipple. Finally, deliberately, the butterfly alights, hooking its slender feet onto the terrain of the comet hovering above the game. I don’t know if the butterfly is really an angel. I doubt it. Angels aren’t as nice as butterflies, and butterflies aren’t really nice, except to look at.

Thousand: Seven Hundred Eighty-Two

And on another world entirely three angels sit down to a game. One angel picks up a pewter figure of a cowboy and moves it three spaces. Setting the figurine down, the angel keeps one finger on it while reviewing the things that might result. When the angel at last is satisfied, the next angel picks up a carved figure of a dog with wings, idly rubbing its muzzle, then places it on a square marked LOSE TURN. The third angel rises and ejects from its cold mouth a comet, all dust and snow. The comet hovers over the board.

Thousand: Seven Hundred Eighty-One

breath. Breath is the line of power that leads to your core. It is the messenger, telling the world what is within, receiving what is without. It is the power, the awareness, the first control. Who controls the breath controls the self. The self is the universe in miniature, contained, containing, infinitesimal, a sliver so minute it contains worlds. The worlds move in interlocking patterns, in independent patterns. On each world there are contending societies, harmonious communities, lost souls. Here, a dinghy under sail bounces over wind-beaten white caps. There, a river drains into sand, continuing in mazy motion underneath.

Thousand: Seven Hundred Eighty

from a pitcher that’s been cooling in the fridge, then into the nearly filled glass she adds two ice cubes. She drops in a fluorescent green swizzle stick and looks up. The tour guide smiles. The man smiles tentatively. “Will you go again?” asks the magpie. The man in the dashiki shrugs, and the old man at the next table hiccups audibly. After a moment in which the lemonade does not approach the table, the magpie cocks its head and says, “You should go back now. Would you like some shoes to take with you?” The man takes a deep

Thousand: Seven Hundred Seventy-Nine

bird was trying to sell me on lemonade.” “A lemonade then.” “A lemonade sounds worth trying. Maybe not a tizzy.” The tour guide pats the man on the shoulder. “I’ll rustle that up for you. Just relax.” He watches the guide duck through the low side entrance to the snack bar, listens as she rustles about getting together the ingredients. She stands up with two lemons in hand, slices them in half, presses each over a citrus juicer, the yellow lemon water sliding down the grooves, the seeds stopping at the grate. She puts the juicer aside and pours water

Thousand: Seven Hundred Seventy-Eight

in the pockets of his trousers. There’s a card in one of them. He pulls it out and reads it. THANK YOU FOR VISITING. PLEASE COME AGAIN. The man in the dashiki tosses the card onto the table and the magpie hops back, regards the card with a twist of its head. “Did you have a good time?” the tour guide asks, at the man’s elbow. “Would it be worth your while to return?” “That depends,” the man says. “I went on business.” “And it wasn’t a pleasure?” “It was many things.” “Would you like a soda? A water?” “The

Thousand: Seven Hundred Seventy-Seven

We have carob. We have almonds. We have dried cranberries and burnt shotgun shells. We have pizza and pizzetta and peppers. We have dog shit and glue and barbecue-flavored pickles in shoes.” The man flinches at the last word. The magpie continues, “We have shoes in the shape of Manchuria and shoes of glass and wire. We have shoes fit for a king’s heel and comforting to a pauper’s corns. We have shoes of brown and shoes of white and shoes of.” “Brown and white?” the man says. He pats the dashiki, feels for pockets that aren’t there. He fumbles

Thousand: Seven Hundred Seventy-Six

he says. “I. Yes. I think. No. I don’t wear. I don’t.” He rubs his eyes with the backs of his hands. “I have to sit down.” He goes to one of the chairs by the snack bar. The old man hiccups. He smiles at this man in the colorful blouse. The man in the colorful blouse doesn’t notice. The magpie jumps down to the table and waddles over. “You come from the other way?” the magpie says, not really asking. “Want a chewy bar? Lemonade? Lemon tizzy? Lemonade verity? Lemon in the hole? Bar of chocolate and peanut butter?