Passed out
August 11th, 2009
Angelina’s life as a nun is one of daily routine, quotidian the proper word. Dreary tedium? Not at all, dutiful repetition, each day like another bead of the rosary, the sum more than beads, a sacred necklace. With ever finer grit the imagination has been sandpapered away, it is smooth to the touch, and with no character other than smoothness, the smoothness of a bead.
Her old street urchin pal Juan broke the pattern one morning. She was glad to see him, as always. His life of freedom and abandon was so unlike hers that she tingled, hardly knowing why, even to be near him.
“Will you come with me to see my father, see how he lives?” He asked, and they did.
“Will you ask your God what I should do about my father?”
“Yes,” she said, and never before had she felt so helpless.
The horse of old autumn has a red beard
and the foam of fear covers his cheeks
and the air that follows him has the form of an ocean
and the smell of vague buried rot. Pablo Neruda
George's selection of 66 Phlogs is available in print from People's Press.
