What Would Kill Me

On page 63 of my copy of Woman in the Dunes by Kobo Abe, someone had underlined “A monotonous existence enclosed in an eye.” How much sand there is depends on how far away you are from the sand, I thought. A spot. The whole sky. A week later, while watching Teshigahara’s 1964 film, I paused it at 1:40:58 when I got up to get another cold drink. It was a hot night. There were no screens on my windows. Right there in front of me, three men stood still on a sand dune with flashlights in the dark. Together, they looked like the bright unblinking eyes of a jumping spider. I can not stop, I thought, the spider, or a pursuit, or from tiring in quicksand, or a madness in the darkness, or a tiny light-pink fruit fly, the hot breath of a bear, an always on television, from finding a pair of scissors on the moon, or when I die, noticing my death notice me.



From Fjords Vol.2 (Black Ocean, 2021). Reprinted with the permission of the publisher and poet. All rights reserved.