V. BLINK
CIRCLE
information enough for two lives. he says. get to one
side. there’s something underneath. the cross-section shows the vein
ending here. that’s its heartbeat
bombarding the surface with metal
I’d be driving the cylinder through that enormous bone. I’m
sorry he says. you can’t trust the surface sample
only then footprints their aerial touch on the
eyelids
LINE
an epidemic. those tiny mouths devouring the
faces the walls the letters. blink of an eye
their doors their crops. maybe a tidal wave
wasn’t the line of succession recovered at some point?
under the lens the life forms do their strange dances
their minuscule heads and extremities. I’m telling you
I saw it. august sweat and a pinprick. It was there. so
it’s true. he blinks. he says. change the stain.
it’s not us
that sharp pain the desire to seal off our
eyes
dogs pulling carts drawings snakes and
geometry. but by then it had already happened
their calligraphy fingers. that secondhand trace
SIGNAL
all of them were new
positioned behind the glass as if some had emerged from
others. that family resemblance.
pick one. he says. impossible. it would pale under the lights
more ornament than domestic animal.
impossible. we’ve come this far, doesn’t that
mean anything?
SPIRAL
the bird at the center. between gemstones and
tiny chains
its eyes at the center. between sand and bits of
copper
the flash at the center. that arrow of light. the distance
between eye and void
GEOMETRY
bird nebula. bird swarm. too quickly.
they’re like nerves. he says. like neurons.
or maybe their crackling
the arid mouths of their offspring. excrement a
warm fruit feeding soil
VI. LAB IMAGES
they adjust the lenses. they’re disappearing he says. the strip of
iodine smothers them. their fingers move slowly
breathing scaled down to microscopic. they’re
white I told you they’re white. it’s starting again
on its own. he says. this twisted mass
*
they open the papillae now the seminal cut
they open up like a fish mouth dead spine
its clumsy epidermis
what’s all that noise
all that aperture
a scar that splits time for the living
*
it’s what they were expecting. a reanimated being
they clap and
clink glasses with specimens spilling them
onto the floor and that clumsy defibrillated
heart they applaud in their army boots
it’s what they were expecting
it speaks a signless language
*
they lay them out with their arms stretched upward
it’s the best way to sew them. he says. stitch up the arm.
the elbow the wrist. to give the appearance of
normalcy. use a fine thread for the sutures.
we’ve been doing this for years. at first we thought
the work would run out. but no. there are more
and more of them. without eyes or legs. they’ve been sunk in the
mud a long time. some can’t be fixed
they lay them out legs apart
we have prototypes of faces and torsos. some turn out
better than others. the trouble is then they all
look alike. better that than going around with a
dismembered body
everyone nods. the ones with holes and the sewn up
ones. they all nod and clap their hands
VII. L’INSTANTE DÉCISIF
that’s the last photo they took on the trip
it was so hot and the mosquitos wouldn’t stop circling
them
she said
as if there were something wrong with them he said
but they weren’t biting at least it didn’t seem like it and the clothes
were heaped on the bed like a woman
asleep
the surrounding materials rotted the ceiling
melted by the heat and in the floor
enormous holes opened up
to the ocean
he says
like the eyes of a crab
she thinks
*
since the moment he said: yes we’ve veered off a little. the
garden she’d go to whenever black fish
devoured her mouth filled with red trunks with red
branches a piece of red sky. he should have said something
as the images buildings collapsing
appeared again and again. the image
went bad he said. yes. even the breathing was red. they collapsed
turning into white dust. they should know
it’s not working she told him
that’s when she noticed the missing
umbilical cord
*
toothless at kilometer fifty-three. overhead
a hand-shadow-bird. it’s a place where
abandon
she watches his beard in the mirror where the rest of
cars feed on each other. eat and
disappear
what does the bird need to be a bird
she puts her hand out the window. hard air raises its
chorister voice
now everything is an original copy. the
only beak of the only bird that would never again
cross the sky
the origin makes them want to pull over and vomit on the
roadside
*
the arm was first. it was still kilometer
fifty three. time moves so slowly. on the
black ground a petroleum rainbow
they wanted to scatter gasoline watch the flames. too
late said the uniformed man soon they’ll be coming for
them. it was also too late for contractions
then they saw clothes and a shoe in the road
before the sky stopped shedding light they brought out
white beds and positioned the arm there
still at kilometer fifty-three and the arm appeared to
wave happily as it disappeared
in the car-crib
*
then faces displayed in glass jars what a laugh
a leg that doesn’t make it through the screening
jump on the mattresses dodge cardboard hedges
recognize him by the foot the throat clearing a
scar on the hip. the man with the badges comes
toward the couples so solemn
*
exhaustion is another way of saying I love you the
hair
greasy with circles closing like
hands
the way hands should have closed
she remembers a fruit that extended around her
laid out on the ground
the fruit like round almonds plumped up with pulp
like her body ample with
weightless pulp
exhaustion is another kind of prayer the skin
completely unstuck leaves her out in the open
a tiny god rare and hermetic
*
with their little black feet they chew at the corners of
mirrors. there’s no remedy for this plague he says. pulling
the cord that attaches his heart. as if
a great martyr he nodded. it’s better to give in.
tiny Aztecs making nests the shape of
pyramids. they’ll be resistant to the poison. they eat it as if
nothing. sweating. their heart in a pin bed
she watched the black stain climb the wall
drawing equations
they’ll be resistant to poison. not to blunt force
*
her hand opens inside his chest like a leaf. the
highway unfolds the intermittent headlight grows.
cuts like cherries in the low trees
shrunken by bacteria he says
or open the cranks the cases. everything skin even
the obstinate wood the worms trapped
inside its contraction the numbers continually
melting images of the last and
laminated animal
that was the first photo they took on the trip