I thought I had exhausted all my metaphors: various prey; coins
inserted slant, jamming vending machines; cartoon hand over cartoon
mouth. I studied grim histories of hysterical patients, listened
to accounts of fish who change their sex to breed. I thought I knew all
there is to know about glass: a viscous liquid forced to acquiesce
to rigidity. If I could learn the posture well enough I’d know
how to unlearn it. I practiced exhaustively. I’m practicing now,
today, as I sit smoking. Next door, workmen are lowering a warped
slab of half-inch plywood from the building’s distant roof. Above, one rotates
a winch while below another gathers slack, taming the spent plywood’s
wild twists. A third man stands, watches the rough plank pirouette past several
windows, bracing to receive the spinning scrap. You think I’m telling you
the story of the plank; how it feels to be trussed, grappled over. But I
am the third man: waiting for some purpose to come into my hands.
