Mother, they say that each man has three souls.
One is the little pupil of the eye. Mullet circle in opposite
directions—silvery, non-Euclidian geometers taking the measure
of oyster beds. Sea grape leaves are orbicular; the flowers very small
and borne in racemes that reach into the open blue where happiness thinks
about nothing. Mother, what a feeling a man gets in the active sights of the camp,
the army, the wounded…He treated his body as sculptural material to be reshaped by the
bullets’ passage. A palm root had grown through the whorl of a lightening welk, dangling
Columellas littered the ground, the broken inner whorl, snail’s essence and foundation, used as choke hooks. Large welks hafted to wooden handles and used as hammers and cutting tools. Galapagos Eye Shadow. Figure how much you need. I was trying to think about a big fear. Lingering desires, unhoused, decentered. Mother, what’s wrong with my lawn: my mower, my blade, the oil, barren patches, grubs on the roots? Distrust yourself. Between forms, between homes, between jobs, between tongues, between lawns. Shells used to make dippers, cups, spoons, net weighs. With knap-sacks, tin cups, and some with frying pans strapt over their backs, nothing neat about them except
“inexactness.” Unbestimmtheit, from the verb bestimmen “to determine” yields “indeterminacy” and becomes Unsicherheit “uncertainty.” Another is the shadow each one casts. Mother, what it is like for the bat to be a bat? Last is the image of oneself that each one sees in a mirror or a calm pool of water. Algae cream hydrates complexion soothes spirit. Mother, the poor boy was dead…he is altogether unknown. And thus they go to the burial place to speak with the deceased ones. Shell pendants
were made from the outer whorl, carved as ceremonial ornaments.
From what the deceased say, they learn about
things that happen in other regions or come to pass
later on. Fragments used as scrapers
trust the inner voices.
Heisenberg consistently
used the word Ungenauigkeit
their muskets; Above the wind-
shaped waves light dances on a hull
revealing a net of light that interweaves,
opens, closes, loosens, tightens, stretches
its mesh echoing the play of water and sun, the knotted
intersections a fixed point like that white butterfly, stopping
to sip nectar that brief moment—Mother, I don’t trust my intuition. I don’t
