Look, doctor, at the tangle of synapse where the pearl should be.

If you have no time or strength, act without time or strength because they may follow. In the meantime you could imagine you have them.

Anatomy of a Dress

Where the doll heads roll. Wonder as faith, knee-deep in sibilant

worry, a sleeve here, a sleeve there. Light over the hills, granular as

butterfly dust, thematic splitting. Did I dream the confessional?

Wasn’t shame a shadow of protection? As in embryo, fishook in

the womb? Maybe we carried each other? Maybe even forgiveness

is without resolution. Lines drawn as in don’t go back. Lines drawn

as in who cares what name you give the other? By then I called out

to loss, the anemic capillaries, my own inability to ask for more.

Ruffled lip of sea froth (the feminine) to twirl all girly in the wind

of that making. Spin.

Gretchen Mattox

The subject who speaks is situated in relation to the other. This privilege of the other ceases to be incomprehensible once we admit that the first fact of existence is neither being in itself nor being for itself but being for the other, in other words, that human existence is a creature. By offering a word, the subject putting himself forward lays himself open and, in a sense, prays.

Levinas

“I hate writing; I hate art–there’s always something else there. I won’t have you choosing words about me. If you ever start that, your diary will become a horrible trap, and I shan’t feel safe with you any more. I like you to think, in a sort of way; I like to think of you going like a watch. But between you and me there must never be any thoughts.” Elizabeth Bowen

Not yours for a song anymore.