a somatic review by Daniel Cantrick

Portable Press at Yo-Yo Labs (2013)
$16

Dear Mrs. Alice,

May I call you that?  Are you comfortable operating from a space of Mrs., a dear Mrs.?  In increments, I have come to the point where I must flee to your psyche.  I know this is problematic because you have not given me a map to get there, but I cannot read maps now anyhow.  I won’t miss anything.  I promise.  Yet, I am prepared for when we fail, how we fail and when we cannot be just a little more and.

While I know that with each body in this space, we lose a little air, but do not fear, I have protection. Sir left it for me in the form of a jacket or cloak, I cannot clearly remember, but it blankets us, brightens our colors, and it is precious.  With this in mind, let us go there, to this pivot of mirage.  First, know the difference between grief and lamentation or don’t.  Next, give up on the notion that you can emit time.  Learn, to spell Hannah backwards, and be prepared for the sentiment that words go inside books to die.

Now that we have established some ground rules, I feel comfortable moving forward.  Do you?  “I had a flash-back to my mother leaving for work in the morning when/ I was still a little girl, and she would always say to me, kiss me like a fool.”  I know it is too depressing to put this grief on you over and over again.  I know that it gets difficult when a tear is confused and won’t exit the corner of your eye, but I want us to focus on the migration.  That migration of death; not through a grandfather clock, but rather a migration through that little whistle, that little stroke of air that sounds between the teeth and tongue.

If we are to get there, we need to be cancerous. “The cancer.  It / doesn’t care where or how it started, and it doesn’t care where or how / it’s going wherever it’s going, but it knows it will get there.”  Sir, would have wanted it this way.  This cancer does not distinguish between local and foreign bodies, so please be prepared.  Be prepared for this distinction.  Be prepared to be a little more and, and we will be better off.