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41
With a cheek
With a cheek pressed against the car window. For a
moment I see a man running across a field. It is January 20,
even though it is November 15. I meet myself, some me,
some him, some
disappearing me
in the encounter. There is
no return, like a body that doesn’t return from anesthesia,
or someone who is no longer missed after years of travel.
Only some man who runs, with no name and with no story
to attribute to him. Some last time. The field where he ran
is no longer there, only a genealogy of the heirs of the field.
The diagnosis, the unearthing that cuts into the face.
Embodied experience
when you read this. The body takes
everything. The territory of definitions grafted onto the
skin. I disappear into my own prior future. I will die
obliterated by a multiplicity of connections.
We went as far as possible from Via Dolorosa, over the
rooftops of the city. His gaze caught on the barbed wire
that separated houses and walls. He could place it precisely,
the year and location of the first production, Austin, Texas,
1936. Years ago, he had bought a more extensive collection,
some 80 different specimens, which he had patiently
supplemented ever since. There are only some 120 different
specimens of barbed wire, all the rest are derivations, he
said as we descended toward the Gethsemane garden and
eight olive trees, guarded by the wire. To be awake in
language. To sleep peacefully among stitches.