The VR

Read by the author.

 

mask is strapped on now. The rubber brace
goes round my
face then neck, they slip it on fast, it’s cold, then it
snaps on. They’ve put
the clamp in my mouth
so I can’t bite off
my own tongue
in amazement. Amazement
comes. Hello it says. Here I am. There is an arm, look, a tiny arm
on the dirt road, yes, it’s dirt after all, the
road, I pick it
up, it fits in my palm,
it’s coated with dust but I make out the lines of
destiny, they are cracked,
the line of fate is
curved,
trying to turn around on the field of the palm,
like a river when there were rivers
and geologic time,
the arm something that grew up fast, out of dry soil, as if it were soil, or once
soil and breath,
when there was myth, when there was
the fantasy of
creation,
but it’s my arm &, see now, it fits back on my shoulder as
my very arm, something I
own—you saw it
with your very own
eyes they say, did you not, the row of poplars dividing my field from
someone else’s
stirs, & I see how the trees want to run, how they want to be barefoot, how their roots
feel bloody to them though they seem
so clean, so innocent & willing, so planted, to
us, from
here, I detect in them a terrible need for power, for action which might require
judgment, forgiveness,
we are not alone says the minister of the mask,
everyone wants to know
suffering, otherwise what is there
to remember & forget,
how cold the straps feel, they read my mind, things turn warm out of
nowhere, there must be no
monotony says the voice, would you like the dust turned to mud, shall we give
the trees wings, go ahead, use your arm now,
here is another for the other side,
you might not have noticed it too was ripped off
in your prior order,
and indeed there it is, so still in the mud now,
the ring still gleaming on its finger gives it away, I could have stepped on it I
say, I hear cicadas even though it is cold, how
real, how real?, we are returning to some prior place
where we will find everything as it should have been,
the evenings shall be the evenings,
the sun shall be warm but not too warm—there will be gazes in the eyes of creatures
which will be recognizable to us, not fear, not all the time hunger & fear,
there will be time for curiosity,
there will be children, and time, the creatures will not avert their eyes, the rain
will come again and we will hear it fall
on our roofs—now they are making rain fall, they are making a soft wind
cross the field,
they have placed flowers in the crevices, and fruits in the trees,
for the time being,
for just when we are peering
in that direction,
look, the place where the chemical factory was before the world disappeared
is full of wheat, and doors seem to open
as I approach.
The strap tugs. We are still perfecting the desires
they say. Look, there’s a feather on the dust I say. A bird
passed over. I can put it on now. Like
this. Look, I am wearing it, the feather. I shall plunge it in my
back, I can make it be
huge. Now it is I
who pass
over. But I am still
here. The path is filled with torn-out
feathers. It is soft. Dust rises. Are they gone. Are the minders
no longer in this
story. Am I alone here. Am I just
here
now. Look, it is the scene of
destruction I think. Something was
caught here & it
fought hard here &
lost. Where is the antagonist. Oh is it
me I think, putting my hand down now
in the down, in the piles of down, where it
fought off something like me,
just like me,
& lost.
   

This is drawn from “To 2040.”