Darcie Dennigan

The youngest living thing in L. A. was my baby. The oldest living thing was the wind. The wind grew well in that city in the desert. As did my garden of well-tended cement. As did my baby, whom I held like a heavy statuette. I named him Mill at his birth  . . .As the wheel goeth by drift ofwater . . . And he grew and the wind blew and we lived in that desert and . . . no rain. No rain, no river. No sound of water. But for— The fountain water. The official fountain. Which flowed. Every day. Every day the baby slept. The baby breathed. The fountain flowed. It flowed imperceptibly. As if its water were fast asleep. We stood on the fountain’s shore: woman + newborn. We made one totem. I named the baby Easter Island. We played I Spy. I saw: coins at the fountain’s bottom. Eyes. Copper cataracts, winking through the water at us. I held the baby close. I held the baby stiffly. I brought the baby to see nobody. I saw: statues in the fountain’s water. Statues in tall grasses on the shore of a sea. I turned to tell somebody. The city had disappeared into complete silence. There was only: the baby. We were watching the water wrinkle in the wind. In the distance, maids were ironing. Overhead: jets drew ciphers in the blue with their chalk. The drift of the maker is dark. Beware that by the drifts thou perish not. The statues, the statues in the strange fountain were looking at us. They were weeping and turning, turning and weeping. They might have seen the city shimmering in the sun and wind, and known . . . It was a city with no one in it. If a door somewhere on the street opened, it would always be . . . no one. It would be a bad draft that had blossomed. I longed for meadows white with drifts of snow. I named the baby Drift. In the winter I had planned to bring him north. To a barn’s eaves, to hear icicles drip. To prepare him to grow up in the path of the next great glacial drift. City whose sky was white jet streaks. Whose houses were apparitions of asbestos flakes. Whose homeless sipped wind from tins. Whose only water was the strange fountain. Angel, my angel, my sweetheart, wake up. See the foam on the wave, seethe tornado, the hurricane. We stood on the fountain’s shore. The wind blew particulates of rug powder, of lemon-scented floor polish. The maids of the city were cleaning so completely. And mutely. There may have been other names I gave the baby. Zeno sweet Zeno Little fellow little fellow Vertigo I said to the baby, We will stand here until there is snow on the mountain. I may have meant to say fountain. We peered all day into the strange fountain. I said to myself, That is just your face stiffening around your cheeks. That is just grass growing at your feet. I held the baby all the time, and he never ever cried.

Try as much as I can try not to be I, nevertheless, I would mind that so much. . . said the oats to the water . . . which was working up to a boil . . . See, I said . . . to my daughter . . . Even oats . . . even oats maybe mind the boil . . . mind becoming oatmeal . . . For there was a small matter . . . Oleg had sent me a letter . . . I was to become . . . under Oleg’s orders . . . an angel . . . But we were late for school . . . We should be frantically . . . fossicking . . . but no, not if I was . . . dying . . . always late . . . I AM TO BECOME . . . I announced to her . . . before breakfast . . . AN ANGEL PRESENCE . . . I sugarcoated it . . . an angel who will bread your house . . . with lily dust . . . Why would I need lily dust . . . You’ll know when you’re an adult . . . Oleg . . . due any minute . . . I was telling her how I’d be . . . constantly . . . crossing over . . . to visit her . . . She asked . . . Will I know who you are? . . . Well not at first . . . No . . . But I am sure you will always be gracious . . . She was questioning things . . . very . . . worldlily . . . which sounds like she was making the world’s weight . . . into a delicate petal . . . of flower cellulose . . . but no . . . just . . . worldly is what she is . . . was . . . Once . . . when you were thirty-two . . . and in that attic apartment . . . and you . . . well . . . I understood . . . And you were cold . . . And I kissed your head . . . The top of it . . . In order to smell your hair . . . Mom don’t smell my head . . . I’m not even eight yet . . . Right . . . Yes . . . I must have been having a nucleolytic episode . . . in which I foresaw . . .Mom . . . I heard her . . . I was still there but already . . . in the . . . underbelly . . . ? I was thinking of a lovely girl I knew . . . Last name De Flamand . . . she once wrote a lovely piece . . . about the world daffodil. . . and the difference . . . between yellow and yellowy . . . Mom . . . How nice it was going to be . . . to fit in . . . the underneath . . . or overhead . . . what have you . . . happily! . . . It was all coming to a sharp point . . . Had to get back to the present . . . for a moment . . . See . . . I said to my daughter . . . See . . . Even oats mind becoming oatmeal . . . We were staring down into the saucepan . . . my daughter in my arms . . . we played Taps. . . on our lips . . . in honor of the oats . . . I was present for that peculiarly sad moment . . . and still am . . . afterward . . .

To insects – sensual lust. . . was how I began my talk . . . On Paradise . . . at the local library . . . It would be a nuns-only audience . . . I knew . . . ! So I’d donned my habit . . . wore a ton of More Spirit Than Flesh make-up . . . And . . . brought props . . . props in my large portable closet . . . l’Armoire Secrète . . . Got to the library assembly room . . . Fuck . . . the one . . . only . . . person in the audience . . . my husband . . . Who . . . I knew . . . ! always preferred I get right to the . . . Thus . . .Paradise is sex sans bodies . . . Paradise: Travesty . . . Mechanical birds . . . Exegetes. . . Was I losing . . . ? Quickly to witticisms . . .I don’t like sexing but I love having sexed . . . The audience member . . . the audience member was . . . demanding to see the inside . . . of l’Armoire Secrète . . . Fuck . . . I . . . I began fumbling . . . with the golden lock . . . Took a minute for nunly explication . . .Sex lubricates . . . the locks on the gates . . . Paradise-wise . . . When the Armoire doors were . . . I stepped aside . . . let the audience member . . . He got very close . . . peered in . . . put his whole head . . . I regret he said . . . he was nervous trying to joke . . . I regret I’ve forgotten my spelunking costume . . . Shush I said . . . Keep looking . . . Though really there was nothing to see . . .  l’Armoire Secrète was empty . . . Finally . . . he stood . . . squinting in the library light . . . he peered . . . right at me . . . Hey he said . . . he came very close . . . This was how a naked marble statue felt . . . Hey he said . . . gentle-wise . . . Love . . . he said . . . Love it’s me don’t you recognize . . . Of course I did . . . had . . . But had to pretend I did . . . not . . . Will the audience member please take his seat. . . I said it resolutely . . . though not . . . firmly . . . I began again . . .On Paradise . . . My voice as clean as the Dewey Decimal System . . . I brought up my On Paradise PowerPoint . . . visuals of forests . . . trees . . . He was seated . . . Once my car broke down in front of a nunnery . . . over the door of which was inscribed . . . from Dante . . . Nel mezzo del cammin di nostra vita mi ritrovai per una selva oscura and I thought . . . at the time . . . I had been thinking una selva oscura. . . had to mean dark self . . . never bothering to . . . the Italian . . . I just . . . plunged . . . I’d donned a habit . . . black robes . . .  . . . Was I saying all this out loud . . . or in my head . . . ? It’s hard to tell the difference . . . if . . . you talk enough . . .I donned these black robes and lived in shadows and. . . It was time for a rhetorical gesture . . . Of course of course I said with a nod . . . a nod magnanimous . . . a nod sagacious . . . a nod to a slide of particularly dark . . . trees . . .Of course the wilderness spreads woe unto him . . . who carries the wilderness with him. . . and the audience member . . . I had him . . . I knew . . . Thus . . . I parted my robes . . . to show . . . marching in and out of my cunt . . . the ants . . . Then . . . the robes . . . I shut . . . He . . . the audience . . . was no longer standing . . . very close . . . Goodness . . . ! I chided . . . Such distance . . .

for Tim It was in August, such a lovely summer, that I began the massacring. The flower killing. Feeding the sunflowers to the industrial dough mixer. Soon there was enough yellow petal pulp for twelve loaves. For twelve times ten loaves. For twelve hundred loaves. One of the food critics in town came around to inquire about my baking system. . . . I glanced at the machete, propped next to the ovens. Toward October (and what auburn weather!), I still felt it, the substance of the soul, the libidinal terrible whatever. I sat out back with the two countergirls, Haley and Shayla. There was one cigarette, and we were sharing. Mourning is the horizon of all desire, we were commiserating. But Haley and Shayla, they’re— They sell Kaiser rolls and sliced Sicilian and then they leave and put on a fancy tanktop and go out for the evening. They go even though— The little white clematis cling to the fences. (At dawn the buds were dying as a sweet white bread was rising.) November How beautiful were the yellow mums in the thin wintry sun! The bread they made had the hue of golden potatoes. December Specks of red in lit windows: amaryllis that I stole and slaughtered and sold inside a pain de mie roll. I love how in the cold, my breath flowers before me. January, February I hacked through the ice to get at flower fetuses. The breads were very seedy. Spring It was really beginning. Baguettes made entirely of white peonies. Brioche from the blood of purple lilacs. Long lines outside the bakery’s door . . . What is the secret ingredient? I confessed:Flower. Flowers! Please, put me away. I am desperate. Summer I could not go through another. The woodbine had barely begun and already the mornings were full of the scent of them. Not one honeysuckle would go unsucked—unless— I closed the doors (every season is too full of longing!) and rechristened myself Flora. I drank a vat of rose water and put both my wrists through the slicer. And then I began to bleed—a white powder. Flour. And then you came in. I would have known you even if you were not wearing in your  buttonhole a carnation. The bakery is closed, I said tersely. I was bleeding profusely. I loved you even before you said Nothing breaks more slowly, more silently, than bread. With my blood pouring out as a fine, dry flour let me confess before I expire. There on the counter, in that vase fresh and pink is the corsage I was keeping for our dance.

When the motorboat man asked me to love him I whispered precipice the word for the no-more-boyfriend feeling because precipice contains ice(practically twice) because I wanted teetering— What? he said Yes His ears from the engines—so hard of hearing—his hands always so hot Mid our first winter—I’d clung so long to the dock he had to crowbar my fingers off Each digit cracked so cleanly Would you say they break like icicles? I asked sweetly I knew I was nothing! But if I could sustain one song— I is, I is, I is I is I is I could be:ice Sex on the bathroom’s cold marble counter was best I whispered statuette,monument What? he, sculpting my legs, said Yes The child? I named her Cecily It sounded like iced lily For pure, I said pristine At the ocean, I said brine Isle for vacation; for flowers,edelweiss But when I said (only of late, late!)I choose ice Brittle pearls broke behind my syllables Did he hear me? Again, twice, thrice: For my love we would need to live in a great pyramid We would need to sleep beneath the continental shelf with Antarctic crust blanketing us The only driveway to any kind of house is an iceberg-ridden Northwest Passage When I whispered universe you were to translate it as one bright line one bright rime