WHEN I GOT HOME THAT NIGHT, I was in a foul mood. After work, the president called me to a faculty meeting. Present were the deans of various departments, the academic director, and so on, it was a bit of a reach to call in a mere lab director like me. Besides, I never acknowledged the title, lab director. Everyone already knew what I was! Being at that meeting felt like having my balls clutched.
After a shower, I walked naked onto my patio. The sky was full of stars, like a storm frozen in place. It was a seductive sky. When I was together with Little Bell, we often walked out into the night under the starry sky. Back then, we had nothing, but in turn nothing prevented us from enjoying the silent night.
When we went out, she wore a backpack. Inside were a few measly items: pieces of a hemp sack, matches, cigarettes (I liked to smoke after sex), a small bottle of oil, condoms. When the inventory was complete, there was a sense of accomplishment, but the inventory was rarely complete. After one disaster involving hot chili oil, she tasted every bottle of oil I brought before rubbing it on, which was somewhat of a mood killer.
Even so, every time we prowled through the sorghum field was a moment of great happiness. Sitting on the piece of hemp sack, I undressed Little Bell and entered a whole other world. I recited a poem of mine: tight at the beginning and a mess by the end, a final verse that is as distant as the stars. When Bell heard the final verse whispered into her ears, she screamed and pushed me aside. She lay naked on the ground and by starlight, she transcribed my poem into a notebook.
I began to look for constellations. A line of poetry read: like flour under a flour sieve, the stars shower us with their tears. On that silent moonless night, the stars showered their tears on Little Bell’s body like bioluminescent flour. I realized there was no use in writing poems for others to read. If anyone had come to enjoy the silent night, my poem would have been of no use to them. If someone else had read it out loud, it would have only interfered with the sheer joy of the silent night’s own poetry. If a person couldn’t sing, then all the songs of the world would be of no use; if a person could sing, then they must want to sing their own song. That is to say, poetry as a profession should be eliminated. Everyone has to be their own poet.
I stepped toward the kaleidoscope of stars. No one could tell me where I was, or what sort of a person I was. I went to sleep bewildered.