Girl Walking Uphill in Darkness (Nine Inquiries)
dear diary
some thoughts about revelation and secrets
if every morning I move the complete contents of one drawer to another drawer
if every day full
becomes empty
do I need a lock
do I need to tell someone
the combination
dear diary
let us question our instruments
the glitter gel pen
the mechanical pencil
are you pale slick and shimmering
is impermanence a concern
dear diary
is your consciousness continuous
or do you wake when I wake
like the light in the refrigerator
dear diary
could there be a second diary in my mind
full
o the potential
of pages
dear diary if I changed my handwriting
would you feel uncanny
do you know the weight
of this hand
dear diary do you yearn for a body with more than two covers
something complex
warm & jointed
dear diary what was your very first cell
in which direction did you grow
in duration
collecting pages one by one
or in size
beginning as a postage stamp
of zero value
at first were you lines
or the spaces between lines
dear diary I want to talk about metempsychosis
when I start a new diary will your soul fly into it
when I open the old one will your soul fly back
will you get tired
I might do this often
dear diary when people get older they burn their diaries all the time
or their mothers do or their fathers
it’s so aggressive
immolation
wouldn’t you rather be buried at sea
or enclosed in a well
of cool water
the glue on your spine unbinding
fibers separating
drops of ink like black stars
loosed
from their constellations
* * * * *
Abysmal Zone
And after a dog, two children, a crippled monarch butterfly, my husband
returns from Petco with fish. Four fish, which cost about four dollars
apiece, and you get what you pay for because by night two
the rainbow fish is dead. I spend fifteen minutes searching for the body with my net
and yes the tank is small; the tank is translucent; I have unobstructed visuals
on four sides. Eventually I find it hidden almost underneath the fist-sized rock
which anchors the plastic bamboo. The body can’t have fallen there;
it’s half-covered by the bed of neon pebbles my son picked out
and laid with a great gentleness in the empty tank before the fish came home.
The gray fan-rudder of a tail appears chewed. My husband takes a look and jokes
they dumped it in New Jersey — the body does seem stashed; the small pink fish
nervously hovers by the pineapple; the orange fish stalks around the top quarter
of the habitat. (The orange fish is next to go.) The black-and-yellow keeps returning
to the body, visits and departs, visits, and departs. For a moment, my mind
allows the question — is this grief? — and closes it, decides that black-and-yellow
is a bruiser. Our friends who visit for lunch have kept their fish alive three years
in their son’s bedroom, although the tank is green and funky. Over hot dogs
they begin to tell us how on Halloween they stepped out their front door
and saw on the street a car hitting a child in costume. My husband tries to stop them,
to prevent me from hearing any of it, any detail, or the resolution
because lately in the dark I cannot tell the difference between what is a tree
and what is a body. Have I seen in the moonlight a figure
waiting on our lawn as if posted there, unmoved by any breeze? I squint
through darkness, try to make him out, and feel the fine net falling all around