Daniel C. Remein
letter to julian of norwich about last night’s visitors
first friday in lent
she takes off his clothes—i too am glad
to be with them. (they show up with a basket of fish from downtown) we are
the faithful, we are
power, we are producing
barrels and barrels of wine,
distilling
the humors
that rise from the liver to produce
the choleric state.over a selection of cheeses and a discussion of wheels
i quote chaucer’s boece: i torne the whirlinge wheel with the torninge cercle—to mark myself in my pains— swych
is my strengthe, and this pley i pleye
continuously. he looks up at her touching me and asks, a ruse, if i like reading
robert frost
i say sure a mid-summer and a mid-wood bird
he says i wear highway dust. she says sexy people
wear banana republic pants. so there is this turning and turning
and no way to gauge and nothing to be doneso i hand him an encyclical
(the church:
whale,
womb,
wicked)—he responds, he paints goldenrod onto her belly
in egg tempera. then what we’ve all been waiting for,
look she says the goldenrod is growing right up out of my belly
and this makes me worried. makes me jealous. makes me glad to be with them makes me want
makes me makes me, makes me makes me want makes me
shuffle the curtains of the tiny window
so the light penetrates his gaze, so allhe sees is a baleen mouth of faith
in the serious unbelief of reading and a series of glyphs to explain
(whale-fat, a well-forged sword, a
hole in every elk whose eyes are flashlight pools, are
my queer friends shoreline and desire).then i have nothing left to un-believe so i come on strong, come on
moralizing: i say our eyes, see, succeed— push out pliant beams—the rooms we choose to enter finesse wet bodies fresh
from splintered timbers.our eyes filter light on a basic principle, a principle hidden within this charm:
(whale, peacemaker, wound, wound, wound