not language but a map

The Boot Theory — Richard Siken

earlkonig:

A man walks into a bar and says:
                                                Take my wife–please.
                                                                                    So you do.
            You take her out into the rain and you fall in love with her
                                                and she leaves you and you’re desolate.
You’re on your back in your undershirt, a broken man
                        on an ugly bedspread, staring at the water stains
                                                                                                on the ceiling.
                  And you can hear the man in the apartment above you
                                    taking off his shoes.
You hear the first boot hit the floor and you’re looking up,
                                                                                    you’re waiting
            because you thought it would follow, you thought there would be
                        some logic, perhaps, something to pull it all together
                  but here we are in the weeds again,
                                                                                         here we are
in the bowels of the thing: your world doesn’t make sense.
                        And then the second boot falls.
                                                            And then a third, a fourth, a fifth.

            A man walks into a bar and says:
                                                Take my wife–please.
                                                                        But you take him instead.
You take him home, and you make him a cheese sandwich,
            and you try to get his shoes off, but he kicks you
                                                                              and he keeps kicking you.
            You swallow a bottle of sleeping pills but they don’t work.
                        Boots continue to fall to the floor
                                                                        in the apartment above you.
You go to work the next day pretending nothing happened.
            Your co-workers ask
                                    if everything’s okay and you tell them
                                                                                    you’re just tired.
            And you’re trying to smile. And they’re trying to smile.

A man walks into a bar, you this time, and says:
                                    Make it a double.
            A man walks into a bar, you this time, and says:
                                                                                 Walk a mile in my shoes.
A man walks into a convenience store, still you, saying:
                                    I only wanted something simple, something generic…
            But the clerk tells you to buy something or get out.
A man takes his sadness down to the river and throws it in the river
                        but then he’s still left
with the river. A man takes his sadness and throws it away
                                                      but then he’s still left with his hands.

(Source: joycecarolgoats)

four questions (biblical, miryam)

Moses is six days old when Miryam sends him down the river; he is doomed, and lost, and abandoned, and uncut. She crouches over his basket and regrets this with a burn not solely her own; Miryam is not so old herself, but she is old enough. There are her feelings, and there are the others, and for once, they are in accord. 

Moses is uncut. Moses will never grow to be the Hebrew he is. Moses sleeps peacefully as he drifts away. No one is ever quite their brother’s keeper. 

This night is different from all other nights; never again does she send a brother down the river. Of course, it is far from the last time she masks her sobs with the rustle of bulrushes.  

—

Aaron hates his brother. This will not be written, this will not be told; when Aaron dies, the house of Israel weeps, for he is good and pure and shackled to peace. He is a kind man, Aaron. His bitterness is a salve, in its way. He sees Moses and knows he is the Prophet; he sees Moses and knows he brings Deliverance; he sees Moses and recalls the other shackles, those that Moses did not wear. He is a good man, Aaron. He speaks of peace. He hates his brother. 

Miryam does not ever tell him she knows, of course. That is not the role of women, who are meant to observe, but never speak; this is not the role of women, whose bodies are built to be fruitful, whose mouths are built to be closed. 

It would be hypocritical, in any case. She sees the shackles too, when she looks at Moses; when she looks at Aaron, she sees the nights he never spent, the refusals he never had to keep from uttering. She is a good sister. She hates them both. 

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