(an experiment in imitation of “The Dislocated Room” by Richard Siken)
There is a harsh, yellow light coming right in, right past the
drapes.
______It is steady, like a searchlight but dimmer.
_____________________________________Hotter. You
came here along a cinder path, you came of your own free will,
and here you are.
_______________Midge is mute in the rectangular room,
_____she can’t hear you, taking things out of the box, putting
things
______into the box. Three nails, a book, and a folded scarf.
You call to her,
__________________________________Midge look at me,
and she answers but it is like underwater, like at the pool when
you
______are underwater and everyone is talking and laughing on
___deckchairs. The box is blue, rectangular, with sharp corners.
The lid
is battered and won’t fit,
______________________and the lock scratches your fingers.
Midge comes and licks your fingers and complains that they taste
of gasoline,
__________________and you can smell it. You know this is not
_______________________________________________the
right box, but you can’t say.
______________________It is full of clouds. It is full of clouds
and peeling sunshine. Also the cries of children from outside,
________and a backfire from an old car.
_________________It is sick and cold here, and aching joints,
___and all the time the television flickers. The shadows in the
room,
_________in the harsh yellow light, are hard, and they move.
They make a man’s shape, the seaside man, the man you know.
The
____man lies down beside the box.
____________________________He nestles to it and shivers,
because
_______________________his back is bare, and Midge says
__________Look there, at how they criss-cross like tic-tac-toe.
The
____man has scars and deep weals
______________________like the furrows in a ploughed field.
The man
has scars like dogtooth check. The scars are like rivulets of
tears,
______running with rainwater, wheel-ruts, the mud sucking at
your feet.
_______There is a cold, cold mist in the fields, but not here in
_______________________________________________the
rectangular
_______room.
It is still summer.
________________It is still.
_________________________It is summer. Dust is dancing
in the sunlight, though the sunlight never moves. The man
_______________________________turns his face to you,
and
you know him because he has been on a thousand billboards.
__________________He has laughed at you from magazines,
_______from the magazines your mother once bought for you.
He
___is saying
____________Quick, come quick. Or go. Come with me or go.
____________But he isn’t moving. Lying there with one arm
round
_____the box, while
Midge is taking out the nails, the book, the folded scarf, and
____________________________putting them in a neat row.
You take them
_____________________and make the order go backwards;
a nail, another nail, another nail, a book, a scarf folded neatly.
She
_____________takes them
_____________________and makes the order go backwards.
Backwards and forwards,
a neatly folded scarf, a book, another nail, another nail, a nail.
She
______________takes the scarf and knots it round her neck,
______________she stands upon a chair,
a black chair with a red seat and Arabic writing like a prayer.
_____________________________________________The
man is laughing and Midge says
______________________________Goodbye, and goodbye,
there
_____is a sound outside like a single backfire from an old car.
_________________You look from the light to the empty box,
from the empty box to the light. From the overturned chair to
the light, and always to the blue,
_____________________________empty box.
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