Why? friends ask. Why there? Why not a deck chair and a vodka tonic by a Caribbean pool or tours of Roman palaces in flat shoes? I want the edge, I say, of white foam lace on black sand, of curling temple eaves. A blade I turn inward to incise through sedimentary strata of cultural shibboleths, stacked like T-shirts in tidy categories of size and color. I excise an infant never born in my own country. Caroler of words kept mute inside my culture's mouth - @3omniscient, hallow, awe@1 - she knows they're synonyms for @3rain, cicada, rice, star, tree,@1 the numberless of the numinous. She incants arpeggios of joy around the Why? the shrug of friends. |