[silk: a sheen]
silk: a sheen to wear like water. glistens, then, in palest
light. i wrap it ‘round my legs in dreams. i name myself
a partisan, provisional, python, pythagoras? before you
died, grandfather, you were speaking nonsense into being.
it’s what you thought you knew you saw: the telephone
became a gun. a woman walked toward you with it
pointed thru the pane. i tried to tell you that she meant
no harm, that she was just another voice on the line.
said look: the window curtains baby blue, babiest hue—
i wonder who i am to you.
the silk, how with the wind it constantly reveals.
i’m repelled by my own reverie. still, i don’t think
anyone is watching me. silk so thin so thinly skinned;
i want to talk with you about thin places but you’re
already dead. where o where are the dead going to,
after all? the hill you climbed, grandpère, o’er the sea?
i shape myself after thee. in may, you asked me if i had
to go. i should have asked it back to you. spring, spring,
unfurling dream. to slide into my grief like a glove
and sing, which is a kind of fantasy.
how with the piano a voice called out glissade.
i glint i glide i glide into being. i glide i glint i fly.
[so i break]
so i break
thru this silk—
what am i
doing?
curtain bends
like skin as
it softens on
scab—i touch
it. hear my name
and remember
i’m human;
exhale. online
they’re saying
22222222; this
means we’re be-
coming our-
selves most
fully. they’re
saying this—or
that, it’s past—
was the time.
but didn’t birds
just collapse
from the sky?
so i break thru
this silk and i’m
late to the party.
was pumping
gas into my
wasting car. i
don’t have time
to wander long.
22222222; did i
miss the sign?
the screen is
blank. the silk
my infant scream.
i’m just starting
to perceive.
in september
a doctor pressed
her finger to my
pelvic floor. the
pain broke space and
realigned me. how i sat
in the dark. how i sat
in the dark. don’t sit
in the dark and
wait.
—
AM Ringwalt is a writer and musician whose work appears in Jacket2, Music & Literature, and Black Warrior Review. Called “rich with emotion” by Pitchfork, Summer Angel is out now on Dear Life Records. The Wheel, her hybrid memoir, was published by Spuyten Duyvil in 2021. What Floods is forthcoming from Inside the Castle.