The cat sits glowing in the sunlight that pools on the bed. She’s forgotten to tuck her tongue in after licking my thumb, and leans into my hand, and purrs. The sun teases her (she’s so damp, cowlicked from her ablutions), setting opalescent diadems that catch in her fur. Out the window, every green leaf’s now a peridot— the bees rise then set on tourmaline fireweed.
Faye Wei Wei, "To prepare a face to meet the faces that you meet," 2017, courtesy Cob Gallery
I was searching for a word for this epoch, our American anti-epithalamium, every stinking breakage a muddy defilement of our marriage bed—the marriage of polity, one to another in community, neighbors whose goodwill is now mocked, kindness dragged half-naked from her home then whipped through the streets. I dreamt of the lexicon Sappho’d put under her pillow to keep it safe from the outrages of this present future—I’d like to weep; I won’t. Instead I’ll find a tow sack and gather up rattlesnakes, whisper the Gorgon’s name to them, turn them loose, then watch as every cheap imported Gadsden flag turns those who’d break our bonds, to stone.
