Sight

I am lost. In between waking and sleep, my eyes are open but my body is locked. Helpless skeleton, withering on the mattress, such a shabby fruit. There is a window in the far corner, I see a snapshot of an ordinary tree. A quote from Blake, picked by Tilbury, comes to mind: “The wisest of the Ancients considered what is not too Explicit as the fittest for Instruction, because it rouses the faculties to act.”

This Is Not Too Explicit, I guess. Sounds are jumping out of the shadows, leaping from darkness to darkness, heavier than sand. I am swimming against the tide, waves flood my lungs, I reach for the window.

Owls. I keep having dreams about owls. Not the ones with broken wings, tottering behind glass walls, being hand-fed mice. No, I mean full-blooded owls that are perched on branches in the wooded areas that skirt our neighborhoods. In the dream I collect them but my father keeps going out in the middle of the night, in a metallic green Mazda, stealing them from the trees. He brings them back to the shed and kills them. In the dawning light of morning I go out and look for them, but they are gone, and my father’s hands are covered with blood, feathers mix with sawdust on the floor. I reach down to touch but my hands come up empty but for the granules of wood and dust.

Silence. This is the part where no one wants to play.