KEfTH WALDROP
The Ghost of a Hunter
He reads:
What soul suffers in secret, theflesh shows openly.
Deep within, in a region hardly accessible, a bold self-image sends
messages of bloodshed and conquest, which reverberate
in
his heart of hearts.
[I forget which hand is writing.]
He does not doubt that he exists.
The five senses have left their mark on
him.
It is a record of what has
happened to him, but he cannot
talk
or travel until he finds a body of water.
A man who has lived on reindeer's flesh amuses himself with ripples.
In this cage was once a nightingale. In the echo, new words for wind.
The usual convulsions,
and agreen cat.
And, after all, months or years
are nothing to
him.
[My image contains his body.]
His body contains bodies.
Blemishes.
Inglories.
Vague figures, in a howling wind, and with no notion of perspective.
Of countless ruined worlds, he would appropriate the essential
emblem. Wall struggling with wall, shadow with shadow.
Thousands of miles a day.
He gazes across an unguarded cemetery---gazes idly, waiting for new
equipment.
As
through a fixed window, he finds a kind of space, the visible world
foreshortened.
