It is not I that

moves, but

some darker body

some aching system

that looks like me

and yet could not

be more distorted –

It is not I that

sees, but

some twisting mesh,

some thin membrane like a furnace, that

siphons beams of

beaded light –

There are rows of

bending orbs, and

columns stretching

in every direction:

even the ones we

cannot perceive — and

sometimes, within the grid, I catch my

own image wrapped

around the sockets

in my mind.

Seamlessly, I cut

away the skin that

separates me from myself

until I am bare thread:

ragged and exposed to

anyone who knows

how to look.

I am liquid constant,

acid running,

a ribbon cutting and

thrashing as

people funnel

past concentric plugs and stoppers mounted on rusted wires, past

heaps of corrugated steel

and two hanging moons,

small engines moving like smoke,

pulsing sweet and clean like spit.

Time tumbles on, turning

over gravel and

crumpled iron fences, over

bright orange tubes and

barbed wire loops:

asphalt, slate, tin, bronze; reeling

past red brick buildings with pointed roofs,

past picnic tables, telephone lines,

broken palettes, broken pipes,

distant bells, tanks of propane --

A child cries;

the train whistles.

Smoke stacks burst forth, rotten, singing

a sadness that is

also an opening.

What is this restless machine?

Why does it sound like the wind?

Something beats inside

the red dark,

something like a husk,

or a chrysalis;

I barely remember.

Before the birth,

before the wanting,

I had no teeth and

felt no shame.

I had

sugar toes, I

clung to the night chain, I

felt everything I

wasn’t supposed to feel.

A hinge –

falling,

unlinked, now I

am what I fear:

I swallow my love

and my love swallows me.

Desire is like

an open circuit,

coiled in upon itself

and bounded by

its own exhaustion.

Longing, insatiable:

the body rendered incandescent

will wind itself into a frenzy, and fall

into an ever-dimming sleep.

What use is it to fight against the wanting?

I am no more than what I am.

When life itself is contradiction,

there is no sense in punishment.

Make me metallic, so that

I can be free and clear

like falling water.

The surface –

it folds like bone, and

again I come undone. But something hangs

between the plates, something mirrored, that

never dies. I almost wish I

hadn’t seen it –

now I know too much.

A simple pendulum –

a dampening film –

four waves emerge and then collide.

Noise springs into being,

the cells compelled to join, and

suddenly, nothing is stable.

incisions –

impressions –

an inversion –

Yes: we are moving boulders.

Yes: we are transformed.

Free from color,

the seed endures.

One basin, one

constantly replenished body,

one circular mouth,

discreetly bounded,

multiplying steadily,

with determination,

as if it were the first child

ever to be made,

not yet knowing death,

but growing,

growing, despite

the unknowing.

A head

swells.

A tongue

splits.

The raw tissue writhes, shedding

layers and

layers of

uncountable wounds.

Afterward, the cord recoils, and

everything falls away.

[Text collaged from artist statements by Eva Hesse, the trial of Joan of Arc, and instructions by Yoko Ono]

1 – art is what it is –

At the stake,

Scream.

2 – tension and freedom –

alone! Yes, alone:

Against the wind,

3 – opposition –

I know neither the day,

against the wall,

– contradictions –

nor the hour.

against the sky.

4 – abstract symbol –

Is it time… already?

Listen to the sound of the earth turning.

5 – not symbols for something else –

Relapsed heretic, apostate, idolator –

Listen to the sound of the underground water.

6 – detached but intimate/personal –

to me, she is a saint.

Put your shadows together until they become one.

1 – that may or may not happen, possible –

Joan, be brave.

Raise your hand in the evening light

2 – happening by chance –

Sweet God,

and watch it until it becomes transparent

– accidental –

I accept death gladly…

and you see the sky and the trees through it.

3 – conditional –

but don’t let me suffer too long.

Stand in the evening light until you

4 – a group or body forming part of a larger one –

Will I be with you tonight in Paradise?

become transparent or until you fall

asleep.