Light is seen.
Against its fur’s dull sheen the very earth
Shimmers, each claw on earth carefully laid
While black eyes keen

Search for prey.
Beneath crag hard and grey in fear I hide
That night would cover hide and scent to fade,
And in this way

Hope for morn.
Hold!—with fury silence torn—a mournful voice
A most terrible voice of terror bayed;
All hope shorn

I must run.
All attempt at escape is shunned with hunger bred
Across nights of want, bred in sleepful days:
My will is done

Now, blood-lusty
Doors open behind which horrors worst imagined
He steps out to hush and gasp and her barely
Mature wings and tips shrouding still
Soft plumage.

In death’s black eye
Mother and daughter become one as
Passersby silent collaborate through
Shrieks muffled by silence stained
Cherry down.

Pennons unfurled,
Intended to shade from hanan pacha’s crest,
In this battered bird a takallouf veil
Woven sinews of cloud
Doused and grounded.

Her tender grey will never darken,
Determined flight in stripes lie low.

There are dogs passing by, though not often, casting shadows across walls. He doesn’t notice them, or me, as we shadow our way in a weave, careful to respect one another’s breathing. If I was to step out from this spot, and let my shadow fall upon him, would he let me in on his secret? Most likely, he would stop his pre-dawn calisthenics and speak to me. But then I would lose interest, because he would have lost his freedom.

Crawling back into the wrap of bed is best, or an invisible nod.

When I see her standing there weeping, painting her young face caged, I walk over and stand to her left. ‘Hi.’ ‘Hi.’ ‘What do you want?’ ‘Nothing.’ ‘Okay.’ ‘So, you’re crying.’ ‘Yeah. He did it again. I want out of here.’ ‘Okay, let’s do it.’ ‘Okay.’

Any number of possible endings, but an experience that ended in one. She died. We didn’t do it. I remember because it is part of who I should be.

Then there are those other things. Of shame. Kept alive, we are those people, though we should never have been them. Forgotten, there is hope. That we are not those people, but different.

Only a small world can be described, only a small person knows another.

Winged bats and books snatching up dreams as they pass by
And you would think it was a hunt
But it’s not.
Accidental destruction, we have to make up stories
To tell us otherwise.
Stories, fiction, blurry tapestry on blank walls all around.

I hear the huat huat of tiled feet always forward going
Or stop or go, nothing else,
Why is there nothing else?

This is what I was told would happen —harbinger
Of clogged cloaca and those unfinished nightmares
That disappoint and leave one bare
Before new day’s start and endless pointing fingers—

Even Plath could see the muffle and mute it gives
To blues and reds, but here there is no renovation,
Just the steady deterioration
Of a weary mutt holding on stubbornly to life.

A philosopher is a harp lulling us to sleep. A priest, a splinter of flax. And I, well, what am I?

I am nothing at all, or perhaps a leaf fallen from a great tree, carried by the wind to a forgotten gulley, here lay down and fading. A better fate than these poor men, no peace at all in museum halls.

As a father, however, I can speak of the joy and pain of watching these characters grow up, a piece of myself woven into each one. The seed of the world around me, the people close and far that I have copulated with all engendered in these men and women, boys and girls — they are our children. What after all, after death, is the difference between these, my literary, and these, my literal, offspring? Will not both continue on in our memories, written and otherwise, and in our own characters? Much is spoken of physical genetics, and what of narrative genetics? What of those Ivan Fyodorovichs, those Mersaults, those José Arcadios that have, in their own way, fused their personalities, their very attributes, with our own? Of character then, I can speak of hope and pride and love.

I can also speak as a voyeur, a curious onlooker into the personal, private struggles of people, real individuals exposed through story for all to read, mock, and lust after. Poor victims towards whom the reader is free of all law and moral to prey upon, vicious judgment and rabid ravish, with absolutely no retribution except, perhaps, its effects on the soul. And yet, in an ironic twist, a voyeur actor, a Peeping Tom puppeteer, with the dangerous power to direct the scenes into which I, the author, am looking in.

My life is a study in separation, division, secrecy. Beneath the clutter is a simplicity that, with a simple sweep of selfishness, could flourish and offer freedom in ways no god ever has. Or, perhaps this cleansing is exactly what all gods precisely point to.

The problem is, we are all on display, so we replace journals with status updates, etc. There are very few people capable of living what they believe, which is why religion is a dream, ethics a reverie.

We can speak a great deal about beliefs, about what should be. The problem is, what is is, staring us accusingly in each and every reflection, and so long as this is the case, the only honesty that can be, is silence.