Camille Rankine

In the new century, we lose the art of many things. For example, at the beep, I communicate using the wrong machine. I called to say we have two lives and only one of them is real. When the phone rings: you could be anybody. In the evening: you are homeless and hunting for good light, as safe a place as any to make a bed for the night. In both my lives, my nerves go bust. I’m certain that I’m not as I appear, that I’m a figment and you’re not really here. The struggle is authenticity. I have a message. You must believe me.

I was listening for the dog when the locks were pried open. The man was dead. The dog, a survivor, was dead. It happens more often this way. A disease left untreated; the body, in confusion, gives in. The bomb breathes its fire down the hallway, the son comes back in pieces; the body, in confusion, gives in. The grief is a planet. A dust ring. A small moon that’s been hidden under my pillow, that’s been changing the way my body moves this whole time.

Our stone wall was built by slaves and my bones, my bones are paid for. We have two of everything, twice heavy in our pockets, warming our two big hands. This is the story, as I know it. One morning: the ships came, as foretold, and death pearl-handled, almost and completely. How cheap a date I turned out to be. Each finger weak with the memory: lost teeth, regret. Our ghosts walk the shoulders of the road at night. I get the feeling you’ve been lying to me.

In the half-light, I am most at home, my shadow as company. When I feel hot, I push a button to make it stop. I mean this stain on my mind I can’t get out. How human I seem. Like modern man, I traffic in extinction. I have a gift. Like an animal, I sustain. A flock of birds when touched, I scatter. I won’t approach until the back is turned. My heart betrays. I confess: I am afraid. How selfish of me. When there’s no one here, I halve the distance between our bodies infinitesimally. In this long passageway, I pose against the wallpaper, dig my heels in, catch the light. In my vision, the back door opens on a garden that is always in bloom. The dogs are chained so they can’t attack like I know they want to. In the next yard over, honeybees swarm and their sound is huge.