The Image and the Story (Comfort)

The Image and the Story is a lie. Everyday we prepare them in endstop.
We build fires and burn our genital hair so that--come tomorrow--
We're fresh, like the inside of an enjambed lemon.

It's easy. The recipe begins with the neighbors. You learn them.
You learn what they will believe and what they wont believe.
For example, I once learned one who believed nothing but He.
He knew he inhabited but when I asked him about it
He told me a story about another man who told a story about another man
Who told a story about another man until all were accounted for, with their
irregular, smell-good hair and clip-on ties and broken shoes,
This list of infarctions and micrographs.

If he'd only been there, he told me, the world would be different and right.

I told him I was blue (because I wanted him to say I was green)
and he said, "You're a limón then" (as he was wont to Spanish words).

I told him I wished I was smart as he was (because I wanted him to imagine me humble).
He said, "Only if you let me burn you alive,” which was his finishing recipe for me.

~

After the finishing line: A note on the project

Or: replay those days

~

Carianne Mack Garside
Susan Gibb
Steve Ersinghaus

notes on the project