« In Which We Turn The Long Hand Of The Clock »

My Own Experience

by MARK ARTURO

The last train out swings low. The feeling of you sleeping on the marble seat diminishes. "Don't misunderstand," someone nearby coughs while I move through time, like Hugh Jackman or someone very drunk.

Lately, I listen to the police scanner a lot. You can learn very much about what people believe is around them. A homeless woman wakes up to a SWAT team; a man with no hands drops off a package at my doorstep.

I brought the capstone higher, sliding it on the tops of stairs. The hand turns at the start. The difference smells immaculate.

I brought the capstone higher, cuticles massaging small stones, inlaid. "A situation absorbed," he says, touching his face with a longer finger. Echoes of flight causal or direct, a way of saying, "How do you like to enervate, where and whence?"

The long memory stated broadly: upside down rigid not opaque. A crushed mandolin of stars. Think of the matter.

I could measure a portion of light and shape it into fingernails. Damage — inevitable — riding a coterie of magazines. Canyon size or shape, vulnerable at dusk.

Floor-beaten earth. Stand on the clock, break it with a draft or any divestment from an express reality. Faith as a proxy for knowledge, a charged rotating system.

"Your carapace shone golden," or some other discarded compliment. Wet hair. Noon.

Nurse of the palm, hands ribald and unkempt. Much more than simple rejoinder: a tallying of benefits, of scarlet, red mezites and hoatzin, against the gloam. You only missed her for so long.

Mark Arturo is the senior contributor to This Recording. He is a writer living in New York. You can find an archive of his writing on This Recording here.