Things Fall Apart
Sound work over the bench, spoken text:
I’m tired.
dreaming in the face of death,
tired dreams in blue and earth tones
scraped blue-red like bruises
bruised dreams buried
becoming omissions,
omitted from humanity
in our diasporic motion
our time travel
mothers’ hands,
hands reaching,
amputated,
sending a message through time
in the curl of your tiny fingers
your hands trying to pull meaning out of impotent words
absorbed into silence
and pressure
swimming through the air
gathering threads and currents
to explain the death of dreams.
Enclosed or smothered
I exhale
passing my breath to your inhale
I have become a tuning fork,
vibrating and trembling,
attuned or enmeshed
Your hand. hardworking
Your hand. brand new
clutching at comfort
gestures caught in time
movement between gestures
ethereal shadows penetrating the image
like tragedy
rippling over everything
breathless
suspended or immersed
within a womb
dissolving in anxiety
bubbling, churning
passing from me to you to me
Thoughts lapping and overlapping
unravelling
fraying, frayed nerves
staring upwards
through water, through earth
through a window, an oculus
to the falling sky
smudged and trembling
exposed and translucent.
Tired