Jack Underwood

It was winter. The opposite of burning, which is also burning. My banner displayed clock parts, a cup of wine, a worm eating its opposite head. My motto was Try to Be Responsible, but every new moon was a sacrificial moon. Thirteen paving slabs were flipped into the river. The extra light of spring threw our business into relief. My banner displayed a sunburst, a bloodied hand dropping a knife, and in the other hand an avocado withholding its stone. War would soon come but not for us, and this became our motto,Not for Us. Then a crime in our community led to anger. Gossip gathered the truth into a ball; paperwork was spoiled; a man was removed from the yellow light of the barn. We heard his sobs coming from the orchard, and these were a source of comfort. Summer roused lanterns of dust under doorways, though a vinegar taste kept the air difficult. Antifa angels bathed their eyes in milk, as horses refused riders. The timid among us signed petitions swearing that when the time came we would know it by the rocks in our hands. I made a banner for the protests to come depicting the planting of milk teeth, the burning of a noose, a stadium left empty. Autumn was just my luck. I could not stomach the broth I boiled, and slept badly. Arguments I won in my head lost direction when formed out loud. The riots continued but quietly now, indoors. It was a time for manifestos, though the wrongs were too many for anything less than a lake. Friends kept the counsel of friends. In the yellow light of the barn we tried to write sentences each other would like, or not desire to alter. Together we designed a quilt depicting the wolf taking scent, water moving quickly, the sign of the errant cloud and alphabet, a baby resisting sleep, a worm eating its opposite head, only this time surrounded by snow, which hasn’t stopped falling since Thursday, the name we gave to our child.

War the war, the sorry edge of us, because we stacked nice clean plates for days, we were sure things when love broke across the headland, leaving conch shells in ditches, five fish slapping on the steps of the old town hall, it was winter, we were bonfires unattended, our bodies litigating, agreeing and writing it all down, the law of legs, the law of how we sleep, the law of shoulders killing me, and now we fold clothes without thinking my clothes your clothes and war the war o happy war what love we are so badly bitten in this long-term necessary chapel with all attendant relics, citronella candle, junior hacksaw, a box of miscellaneous wires, our headland way-way underwater, no one else beside us but ourselves beside ourselves.

I put an animal on an animal which I put onto the animal I had already stacked on top of my first animal and stood back to appraise my work only it looked much too short despite the number of animals I had gathered, and I felt tired and silly and disappointed, slumping to my knees, rocking back onto my bum, then lying down to stare into the hoary sky until my eyeballs softened and I was forced by the consistent light to close them and listen to the animals taking a surprisingly long time to disorganize themselves.

His blue guitar is lacquered so brightly when he leans a certain way into his song I can see my head in my hands reflected. And when he leans back into the emotion of another chorus his guitar returns to blue: the blue of unboiled lobsters fading to a general Biro-lid blue and with a patina of fine tiger stripes the color of sky midway towards a springtime horizon. I’ve had a long time to consider this. The man with the blue guitar has a little tin for his plectrums, with a cartoon pelican on its lid, standing on top of the words “Pelican Throat Lozenges.” Between songs he tells me that he found it in the abandoned house from the song. Which song? My next song. It’s called “The Abandoned House.” The man with the blue guitar reads his lyrics from a special leather book where he has written all his lyrics. Sometimes he forgets the words and searches the page as he plays, his face scrunching as he sings new noises in their place. I prefer the noises.This song is called Halloween Moon this song is called Lovesick Bougainvillea this song is called Bourbon Canal this song is called St. Michael’s Boots My Cousin’s Old Coat The Wrestler’s Arm The Old Arm Wrestler Dead Man’s Stetson Panama Morning The Skulls of the Cathedral Lawn Shadow in the Gully in the Foothills of My Youth My Heart Is a Love Letter the Folds Are Worn Through.

I got a letter through the post decreeing my sainthood. Beatified, I sat down, because this was big news for me. Bless the television, bless this chair of four wooden legs. I felt like calling my parents, but thought, in a saintly way, to do so would be immodest, so instead I opened the curtains. Rain was washing everything that seemed in need of washing. A bird landed on a bush and shook water from its wings and I closed my eyes briefly, acknowledging its small, hardworking soul, like a microchip destined for heaven. The cat came in, little devil, and I forgave her, touching under her chin, sweet child. We watched the news together and reflected that this was how the world churns its butter of beginnings and endings in front of the sun. What good, I wondered laterally, might befall an ancient tree today? Perhaps merely nothing much. Perhaps a tree will carry on just as it was. What minerals will develop unseen in the earth, deep beneath a human tragedy? Some minerals. Some salty, bright minerals in the dark. I spent that morning cutting white paper into triangles. I spent that afternoon staring at my bits, enamored. I spent that evening clapping loudly in the garden, and come bedtime I was ready to write my long email to the President of the United States of America.

I’m gently rowing and the birds look sewn to the surface of the water as it undulates to the sound of Sean talking beautifully about something I don’t really understand. But all I’m picturing are brown paper bags with little grease spots near the bottom seams that have recorded the way sausage rolls have touched them, or the thin waists of dogs as depicted in medieval hunting frescos, or a cherub’s fat little hand gesturing to a vista where smiling families are meeting to picnic with the animals that God has also saved, or I’m thinking about the mechanics of bagpipes, the legs and arms and the fat belly and the long neck with its holes. This has been the best day ever. Sean smiles. He’s wearing shorts, and so am I. It’s sunny! Mine are so short they may as well be underpants, and I still don’t understand a word that he is saying.