Hibernating Sir, Today Is the Day

by Christine Hume

(reprinted in Harper’s)

Sir, the fates eat fate. Day masons eat mortar. Day springs up, sir. Day hears the cloudless cry. And organs riddle seas drunk. Today, surgeons can remove spacelight. Transistor TVs leave music in place, and the music eats diamonds alive. Sir, transmit the whiteout. Wait for white to unfocus you, but don’t wait. Can you feel the animal breath watching? Its slow teeth watching, sir. Hunters can toy with the safety of thick hands. Stones warm their pockets now. We eat stones so that our voices can touch it. Sir, a voice can change color. It can dig you out, and carpenters can springload today. Up, sir, a chimney blew away. Today we rise out of our mirrors. We roll comets off the telepath. Stars have eaten their own good. The surveyor knew, sir. He knew several weathers may be stitched to the center. Outside hangdogs you. Today we have struck night; we have you cold.

 

Christine Hume is the author of Musca Domestica (Beacon Press, 2000) and has new work forthcoming in The Denver Quarterly, Fence, The Iowa Review, and McSweeney’s. She teaches at Eastern Michigan University.