BLACK BOX

Sarah Fox

 
 
 

This is probably not right but what I thought was Jesus,
this is very Prometheus. He might be the guy who would be tricky
and bring something back. There’s disappearing and there’s disappearing.
Someone once told me: a man is as a man does. What about lilac trees?
What’s left to be said about empty castles? The yogi at the end of time
was a laughing yogi, that is why the medicine man’s feather is not a fake
feather. It’s a “hi!” feather. That is why the medicine man is depicted
as a child pretending the stones smile him in a yellow dream of every day
being full of the sun full of feathers and flying and the luckiest stones ever
collected, the most magical kinds of stones that are. Which includes
flying stones, flying saucers, flying yellow, flying halo, and why
the unicorn girl flies nightdressed in silver orbits vastly around
every face in every stone’s deepening chords of grief. She should know,
having lost, having deared, been symbolistically “dear.”
Having scurried through one coffin after another big heavy coffin,
resplendent in coffin crown spinning one laughing hope. Trying
to say it better, high breath crowning a dearness not ever ever lost
not ever symbolistic or promised like a euphemistically recalcitrant
rose garden, which is a synonym for I never promised you a stone, darling.
As if darling could possibly nest in or derive from starling. Chiron
is a Centaur recalcified into stardust, into crowned astrological thorniness
disguised as any princess you can imagine. Rose shamans purr, why wouldn’t they?
Most shamans spit at the abyss and abuse feathers as polluted landfills
abuse tearful chieftains and hippies. But tree drippings produce
a languorous tar, and something tar is that doesn’t love a feather.
A pink key could be a motif for princess, just as princess could be a motif
for the night. And of night, as of grief, darkness is the Persephone
of hope. Just as Hades is only a telephone call away. Just as pall is
a euphemism for Chiron. Nails and witches hold a girl together, girls
and unicorns are birds of a princess. Motif is an endearment for feather.
Well this is the house that sparkles and mirrors. What you see is
what you get. Everyone needs a cape, the moon revels in rose petals
of course, of course star-crowned centaur. Well, hi said the medicine.

Love, replied the feather.





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SARAH FOX is the author of Because Why and The First Flag, both from Coffee House Press. She lives in Chicago.