(after Denis Johnson)
Would you believe me if I said that he, and I won’t sugarcoat it, is an asshole, but a gentle asshole—someone whose Left Hand doesn’t know what his Right is doing. It betrays him. Signals this goodness he hides—and I wonder if I’m like that? Someone who surrenders Truth only with shoulders against a wall? Who speaks of Love, but Love, like all things, is an action, and can’t be held within the dark pith of some untranslatable word. A word we’ve painted with this glowing patience of abstraction. And Color… isn’t Color an action. As form is an action. As Life is an action as Thought is actionable as Gender as Speech as Frameworks as Breath as Song as Lungs as Time as Money as Waiting as Wading as Waiting for the Needle to drop and explode on the Page as Flight as Exposed Beams in Childhood Rooms as Brick as Brick as Brick after Brick and all those things can be built with ones’ Hands. Hands that may betray you as his hands have betrayed him.