Trying to Survive the Father

Shad thicken the river and I remember my father in 1971 holding me as I reeled one in: the fish pulls one way, trying to survive, the father pulls another, teaching his son how to kill. Oh mercy unto all these men who worship long-dry wells, whose worship is not ruined thereby! In the morning I work through a series of difficult prayers, being called to a kind of mental acuity balanced in the body that only black bears understand. Writing writing, as Gertrude Stein (may all praise and glory be unto the Mother) said. One regrets certain relationships yet accepts them, and yet still longs to express their longing in the epistolarian way it is given to them, yet cannot because everybody is still so determined to keep sex between bodies. Did we misuse the world "galaxy" at a critical juncture? Perhaps the universe is a simple come-cry, perhaps there is no void? The pleasure of the text, once pointed out, sufficed unto my desire forever, thus the law. What you know, you know, and what you don't know, you don't know, and there is no in-between. Despite being hungry, and smelling pancakes in the kitchen below the bedroom where I write, I go on in my wordiness, because that is how it happens and no body of consequence has ever wanted me any other way. How obedient I am! The photograph, the one in the photograph, and the one who beholds the photograph, are one.