Cold Water

I come here at the end of the day after the classes have let out, to this place smelling of chalk. The board in front of me is covered in a language I know nothing about. To tell you the truth I couldn’t even say if the symbols were math or physics or even the spell of an alchemist for that matter, but that’s not entirely true. I seem to remember something of them from my college days, that shallow, gaunt S belonging to the world of calculus, the world of motion, of change.

But I don’t really see the board that way as I no longer am, or should I say, never was very fluent. Instead, I lose myself in this dark sea of squiggles, loops, dashes, and bubbles like so many different creatures of the deep. I play that trick you play sometimes in a Japanese garden, you see, where a pile of gravel becomes Mt. Fuji; a moss covered stone, a craggy isle. And here its is that I see the silver flash of jacks turning, the rushed scatter of krill, the blimp-like approaches of all but clear comb jellies.

And though there’s something morbid about it, spreading the remains of so many dead animals across a board, it’s beautiful, too, I think. It has energy, effort. In the lines you can see something resisting being caught, like a toad struggling from the grasp of a toddler. There is a hand or is it a mind, where you can see excitement, aniticpation in its cursive rush.

I have no idea what it means, perhaps that’s not the point. I come to this place and it helps me, you see, this empty lecture hall where I imagine the seats are still warm.

Go ahead and keep talking and see what happens
All your solutions are bent out of shape
brittle bird bones
you snack on for dinner
nibbling on tiny strands of food
if that’s what you want to call it.