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PARTISAN REVIEW
delicate as underclothes, or entertain omens and other astral sub–
missions as though they were coffees set out in kitchens, as though
one's daughter or less likely one's son had come home from a party and
wanted to talk and you had perhaps pie and a bit of cheese to go along
with the midnight signs and ciphers, the symbols and the codes , while
you listened numbly dumbly to the life you'd passed by years ago like
some display in a window turn tabled once again-turntabled-ha–
ha ha-and your daughter or less likely your son awkwardly dancing to
it as if it were a new tune and not a revival routinely fiddled by Old
Bones and his Big Band. Ha, Mr. Hess thought. Ha ha. Articles in
attics: so much for her visions. Voices spoke to him too, spoke to Hess ,
nicknouned the Hessian by his mates-ha-ha ha-they spoke to him
from out of the past as hers did out of walls , because-it was true–
what has gone before goes before like a hound , peeing a path , and
damn if the old days didn't dump on her, she was no different for all
her fancies , because Hess knew from his own bitter history, hers too ,
that when today caught up with yesterday they would call it tomorrow.
Visions, she said. Voices . Faugh . He had cause: cause like cotten is the
cause ofwounds . Blah. He knew. He had grounds . But his eyes did not
step from the carpet where they were confined by stems and leaves to
little curlicues. There was no need to look . Even if the room changed
around him , it would be the same to his shoulders. I have cause, good
cause, for what I do. My god , I've grounds , grounds like this floor here ,
concrete covered with fur , and beneath that earth forever and the few
pipes we shit through . Listen, Father, I have cause . I do what I have to ,
always with cause, good cause, and only when I have to, only with
cause. I've
grounds.
That's why I wait/wait till I have to/to do what I
have to ... do. I wait while the years pile up and cause after cause
comes like snow in a storm , so that now I may have too many, grounds
too great like a park around a puddle , because they get suspicious if
you have too many, they suspect that if you have too many, you haven't
any , and oh god , Father, I have many-many , many-still .
not too
many, just enough , although they may say what are these causes which
never effect? what is this mass which never moves? but I have many–
many, many, many-and who can blame me if! run past complaint
now as if it were a STOP I hadn ' t seen? Visions. Indeed. Faugh. Blah .
