Our Own Making
a collection of original fiction, poetry, and photography collaged in a handmade book.
mixed media, 9x12.
a collection of original fiction, poetry, and photography collaged in a handmade book.
mixed media, 9x12.
My Teacher Makes / Reinvents the UniverseYou left as if you foresaw it: this end, the heaviness you could have no longer borneafter all these years in the city. We were once all of us strangersto it. Like you, over time, we found our own ways and wordsfor the losses, and if I could draw a trajectory to my own reinventionit might have all begun in this room: your penclicking on the table as if with it you might have founda better explanation for what you would not name.You sought in it only what came after; I wanted only a word for the bruisingbeneath your eyes, if only a phrase for the ache, as if we might have explained it intovanishing. If I had known what it meant—to be seated where light filtered inso purely; to be at a loss for words when yours were so abundant—I might have knownit was only a matter of patience. You spoke with stillness only to stir up everythingrelentlessly. Then by summer you were gone.Even now I hear your voice; read poetry in it; picture the room and everythingin the soft window light; all of us as if made of glass.You, who knew what it meant each time we laid ourselves openfor scrutiny; the silence after; the met gaze across the wide, white table. Hours of our ownmaking and unmaking. To know if I am but a speck at least thenit was within this galaxy of our own. Everything we didto feel significant, later let ourselves dissolve—or rather, to find that we had wanted both things.I will imagine you like this: some eveningin the fall: low light oozing over glass: a poem mouthed softlyin the driver’s seat of your car, and you: nodding your head, as if to music.
Even Then, a DownpourIn the beginning we pulled leaves from eucalyptus trees.I knew my way back by the sound of your voicebeneath the rose bushesbeneath the rain warmed by tea-water, our bodiesbruised on low hanging branchesthe avocados bruised on the warm, wet ground.Even now the rain reminds us of a beginning;I begin to find my way back by other sounds.In years since we found a yearning elsewhere—for other gardens and how we learned to lovea dryer landscape. In the grassland, each springthe chicks in an old bronze bathtub, each summerthe inescapable gaggle. The first time: hairlike, dandelionfeathers between my fingers; weightless.It was a movement north, the sound of your voice shelteredin these plains and everything that changed at the centerof our childhood—the evenings spent on fenced-in lawnsor wading in the reservoir; making somethingsofter of these yearsbefore you left—another immeasurable distancefrom where it all began.A constant reminder returns each spring: a downpouror leaves of eucalyptus returning like the mythof a life back then.As the frost prepares to settle I knowa name for it: I know a word for grief.I do not know a word for how bodies separate.It was a hard year for the way we thought about love;but you said you dreamed about me, even then.
- Page 3: our own makingfiction, poetry, phot
- Page 7: “We could never have loved the ea
- Page 11 and 12: In our last days we lived as fugiti
- Page 13 and 14: Years later, a living room erected
- Page 17: Part 2All We Made
- Page 25: After the ExplosionIn those days it
- Page 36 and 37: Six Words For DepartureHe uses this
- Page 47: Analysis of the Rose as Sentimental
- Page 58: Santo Domingo de los Colorados / Ts
- Page 69: Special thanks to Ian Schimmel, the
Even Then, a Downpour
In the beginning we pulled leaves from eucalyptus trees.
I knew my way back by the sound of your voice
beneath the rose bushes
beneath the rain warmed by tea-water, our bodies
bruised on low hanging branches
the avocados bruised on the warm, wet ground.
Even now the rain reminds us of a beginning;
I begin to find my way back by other sounds.
In years since we found a yearning elsewhere
—for other gardens and how we learned to love
a dryer landscape. In the grassland, each spring
the chicks in an old bronze bathtub, each summer
the inescapable gaggle. The first time: hairlike, dandelion
feathers between my fingers; weightless.
It was a movement north, the sound of your voice sheltered
in these plains and everything that changed at the center
of our childhood—the evenings spent on fenced-in lawns
or wading in the reservoir; making something
softer of these years
before you left—another immeasurable distance
from where it all began.
A constant reminder returns each spring: a downpour
or leaves of eucalyptus returning like the myth
of a life back then.
As the frost prepares to settle I know
a name for it: I know a word for grief.
I do not know a word for how bodies separate.
It was a hard year for the way we thought about love;
but you said you dreamed about me, even then.
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