I’ve developed complicated pores, I need radiance, more beauty steps,
more ice-colored bottles, the old me exfoliated so the young one can emerge
dewy, daily. As if I could see my own face, as if the mirror reflected me
by the shortest route instead of at crazy angles, all probabilities adding up
to my face, as if it weren’t our ignorance that makes things appear in their
classical forms. When the Newtonian God went away, what took His place
acts more like rain, mist, sunshine, bounded by horizons du jour. Enter
clarifying lotion, like the crisp, high range of stars. The face of night’s
supposed to be naked and spread from ear to ear, but at dawn the workmen
arrive with their electric saws, their hydraulic hammers; everything’s to be
built again. The sum of it is complex: for example, my mother’s mouth
when she died was all wrong. They made her look mature, confident.
Their mistake was concentrating on the flesh, trying to fill the emptiness
with it. She had her red suit on. They took her jewelry off when all we asked
for was her ring, leaving her not quite put together forever. I like to think,
though, that dying is like falling all the way back to where everything’s
held to itself by memory. Two old men I knew in Arkansas would pass
each other Mondays on their country road, driving so slowly they had time
to ask after each other’s family. “Mr. Caid,” one would say, and nod.
“Mr. Kimball,” the other would say, and nod. The main thing was to come
along looking as much as possible like somebody same as the week before.