Anne and I were remembering an unpleasant event one evening. A few years ago, we were in Côte d'Azur, returning from a picnic, and there was a flash of naked bodies - a strange kinetic beauty. Their simplicity glowed. I was surprised and entranced. Anne let out a dull creaking sort of protest. In our reminiscence, we noted the line between one kind of weather and another, as shattered marble statues were offering their ill-luck.
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I am thinking of chocolate in a tiny silver box. Sometimes, near the edge of a landscape, or at the edge of an abyss, I reflect on my fleshy face and long sensitive nose, and hold this little box tightly as the horizon turns from dazzling white to a wet neutral grey.
In three days I will feel the weight and quality of bathing and lying in an almond grove. But a scrap of misery betrays my American ancestry, so I will serve an excellent red wine in generous tin cans.
Last week she pulled together her history, drama, and email exchanges with me in a redux about a Venetian etching, where cherubs visited the graves of Ptolemy and Cassander. I thought it a poor description of our lives together. Then I pondered (this week) whether she was produced via donor insemination, or from whence she came.
Him: “Why?”
Her: “Because you must decide for yourself.” Him: “The sea is calm.” Her: “You know what will happen.” Him: “It looks unbelievably romantic.” Her: “Are you trembling?” Him: “I want to lay and watch the whiteness.” Her: “Oh sweet lemon tree!” Sibilant crepitations echo through my eardrums when I think of you.
A couple of weeks ago, I managed to escape to the eastern flanks of the island to a small whitewashed tavern. I delivered myself to an image of the Virgin, hanging on a back wall of the bar. I called out, “Praise God, all is ok! Tonight there will be purple stove-pipe hats for everyone!”
Her words were often far from the truth. It turns out I was frequently duped into believing that her name was Electra. Our conversations were weighted down with no reference whatsoever to gravity or proportion. My breathing for the next three to five years became an improbable structure that surprisingly still stands.
“Many different aims have been assigned to art by many different theorists. Is the nature of art that holds us in check to any disposition to generalize an elastic-sided sentiment?”
(page 911) That said, she has become more confused than one might expect. Underneath her studied rhetoric there are no shapes or hard edges. One can easily discern whorls of serpentine sentences from previous iterations. My final impression is fear for the safety of this old relic.
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August 2018
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