The Expansion of the Self

Tessa Rumsey

Does glass count as a wall?

Does a wall made of glass meet building codes determined in the South of France?

Does French glass reflect the pale light of springtime in the coastal village of Antibes, landscape of plein air and perpetual ennui, home of the author’s first kiss and subsequent disfigurement—

Will local glass reflect Antibes more authentically than glass imported from another continent?

Will the world seen through a window appear altered depending upon where the glass within its frame was manufactured?

(Is the world seen through broken glass whole or is it fractured?)

The kiss had a desperate tone: “Dear so-and-so, you are my last chance—”

Later, unconscious by the side of the road: is this fate?

Or is this circumstance?

Will a lost world spend its last days pleading for survival?

Is there a name for invisible cultural artifacts suspended on a molecular level?

Does glass count as a wall?

The kiss was meant to be a masterpiece: “a mythological experience—”

In tune with Trojan horses: in tune with solar genesis.

Clockwork romeo spidering—along—the outside wall of a building—feeling for her window—the footing getting thin—

Satellite stalking the sun’s circumference: satellite fearing the sun’s hot rim.

Which came first: beauty?

Or disfigurement?

(First came consequence: next, the accident.)

If a speaker is uncertain, can a statement be a question?

Does a window reflecting occupants fulfill its occupation?

Contradiction Number One: we are bound by desire / we are bound by the sun.

Contradiction Number Two: my face in the glass / the glass seen straight through.

If each world stops at walls of its interior—

(Where one body begins, where the next body ends—)

Isn’t a wall a way of rubbing up against, of letting in?

Because history is full of distance and endless revision, “the kiss” came to resemble a window on the Mediterranean—

A window, that when opened, granted a view of the world both utterly changed and exactly the same—

Antibes in endless revision: Antibes held in a picture frame.

(Contradiction Number Three: the only certainty / is the uncertainty of ennui)

It would be a summer night made famous by both its harmony and antithesis—

Her face pressed to his petulent lips: her face pressed to the pavement.

How does a person inhabit a house—

A beautiful house—

A house of disfigurement—

(A house perched precariously between romantic and revisionist)

A house now, a body now, seen through, like glass, opened as a window, the air rushing in, closed as an interior, the air wearing thin—

Wall of glass, roof of stone, to be on display yet utterly alone—

Coastal village, a foreign ennui, romeo at the window, fumbling for a key—

(Does glass count as a wall?)

First the accident: next the kiss: then the question:

Does the soul—exist?