Zoos and Ice Cream

Hard rains. Hard passes. Dodecahedrons. Derrida on gazes, O'Hara on zoos and ice cream. There is a connection - there is always a connection - and yet we insist on not seeing it. How as a child I despised Hide and Seek and Tag. Editions of Treasure Island lost now, yet in memory bright blue - the cover somehow greater than the text (the image transcending the extended narrative impulse). Something scratches in the darkness, as if pushing against the wall, and I listen with a gentleness that was missing from own childhood. Cheating, lying, stealing. The forest falls away from me, replaced by a desert through which enormous butterflies with scarlet wings drift, inquiring in soft whispers do I know them, do I want to. A rainbow is a form of sunlight, sunlight is a form of energy. Into which sentence shall I place the word "love." What about not? My hands meet on her back when we hug, this woman who is basically an olive tree or a warm breeze that smells of olives, or the dry hill on which the trees grow, redolent and strong in ancient light.