Making Readers
Out of Clay
I’ve been making people reading. Their trousers are wrinkled and their legs are crossed and they are bending over their books, heads down, noses almost touching the page. Not that I make noses. I leave a lot to the imagination. I glued them to shadow boxes, and when I ran out of boxes I got a bunch of rocks from my yard. Forty-seven figures reading forty-seven books are sitting on forty-seven rocks, covering all eight feet of my dining room table. I know I am crazy. I am maybe even crazier because I have had a very painful back for ten days now and somebody gave me a methadone tablet that someone had given her. I bit it in half. Maybe I will develop a mad desire for more. That would give me something new to write about.
There was only the white clay today, and it refused to be serious, so I might have to wait for the terra cotta to make people reading again. Unless the white tomorrow will not be crazy. It is now quarter past one in the morning. I stayed up to make a baby for a woman whose book looked like a blanket so I filled it with an infant. What went wrong with yesterday, I realize now, is that I tried to make legs look like real legs with thighs and knees and it all turned to shit. Today I made reptilian heads with long curvy fish tails and they are all reading books.
A young woman with whom I am corresponding, and reading a bit of her work, sent me some new stuff. She is an interesting writer, but it was a while before I got back to her what with one thing and another. When I did, apologizing for how long it took, she said she had googled me to see if I was dead. I love that, but I’m not sure why. Well, I love that I’m not dead, so there’s that. She lives in Berlin and I live in Woodstock, we’ve never laid eyes on each other, yet she can find out whether I’m living or dead in three quarters of a second. I love that she isn’t afraid of the word dead.
I love methadone. Good thing there isn’t any more.
I hope you will find something you like in the small pieces I post. If you do, and can afford it, paid subscriptions are helpful, especially these days. What Comes Next? You never really know. Neither do I. That’s the fun part.
You’re a great corresponder. The first time, years ago, I emailed you and you responded I about dropped dead. Your encouragement kept me writing during a bleak period. You’re the best and I adore you.
I would love to see your dining room table. I would love to keep reading whatever you feel like writing about.