Wound! Out from Behind Two Crouching Masses of the World the Word Leapt

By Kimberly Grey

Tuesdays are long and red. They're red because I've made them
red. So you can see a color
in your mind
when you picture the dog. The dog walking across the yard. The
oak. The space betwixt
and between
the dog and the oak. Now it can't be any other color. Even though
grass is not red. Even
though there is
no grass. Or there is no yard at all and the dog trots into
the street. Or there is no dog and
you must invent
one for yourself. And you will. Because Tuesdays are long and red.
And if I tried to change
them to something
else now, I couldn't. Minds are minds. They do what you
want them to. They obey like dogs.
Look. See. Know.
If I say the word over and over again it will sound like something
new. A command. It will
come to mean
something like Wipe your feet or Don't leave me yet. Soon
we'll be able to replace it with
other things
we've learned. Yolk. Log. The distance between two alike things.
The distance between two
unalike things.
The decision I must make now. Whether or not we are fastened
together like moth wings or
clam shells. Whether
we hurt. And what is symmetry anyway but two things wanting, in
all their possible differences,
to be exactly
the same? I tell you Tuesdays are long because they are long
in this deciding. And red, so you'd
have something
to look at while I think this through: how to know if we are these
two, tightly wound things, or
just a wound plus a wound?

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