Monday, May 10, 2010

by Forrest Gander

From Conjunctions


Muse

What words go with crossing? Orange and security and ventriloquist. This is a special message. The movie is unbearable and there isn’t even a movie. The condensation of a fart poured into a plastic mold and set in the window like sushi or landscape. The way he laughed, I hated him more than his own mother. It wasn’t really a special message but the same message as always. As a tapeworm sucks nutrients from your experience. Which is the reason, duh, for your throbbing sadness. But to extract it, you’ll need to place the honey-word at the tip of your tongue and wait to lure the worm upward. Just when you feel it twitching at the back of your throat, making you cough and retch at once, you’ll have to stick out your tongue as far as it goes. There’ll be one chance, just one, as the worm stretches for the honey-word. That’s when you pinch its head between your fingers. Too gently, it snaps back like a rubber band. Too hard, you kill it and in its death spasm, it evacuates all its eggs inside you.

No comments: