Profile

                     The writer of this story has already fallen to sleep, but spreading out like crabgrass, like vines, come words upon words, and even so, a binding coherence to them::::as if one were to whisper to oneself yet experience it as something being overheard ‘No such thing as miracles::::only surprizes’::::words now more like ice crystals::::and the writer’s body shifts, smoothing pain, dead weight of the head pressed to the page.  Could this be a melting of the head?::::Like when one sees images of people shot in the head, how the blood leaks out::::these words.

                      People often teach their memory to perform tricks::::as if dogs, and the method is invariably the same::::repetition.  What would be the consequence of the writer awakening, lifting head, and peering down and seeing that the story has been written::::as it were, without the simplest intervention, no thought, no muscle…

                      And as the writer sleeps::::the words etch their way around the slight curve of the forehead, the brow, that noble nose, the flattened cheek, raw chin::::a profile::::so that when the writer does indeed awaken, eyes wild like an astronomer who swears he’s discovered nomad tents at the foot of the mountains on the moon, his white face will indeed be there::::in profile::::and alert::::with the expression like one whose face is printed on money.

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© wfairbrother 2002

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