crouched to pee at the side of the trail she fingers the stalk of shrubby plant. the white cast of wax on its leaves melts under the heat from her hand, settles into and smooths over the ridges on the tips of her fingers. in the thicket it is already night, in the meadow only dusk. the occupants of the lodge rub their palms over the red welts on her ankles. when the agent of irritation is unseen a mark is holy, or it could be, and so it should be touched. clear fluid spills from a carved hole, making a small point where wind is felt for a moment. taste of milk only not milk from a breast, milk from oil. suspended particles. what is made into milk is what is sucked.
  
     some sort of bushy asters by the lake closing blooms into pods that exude a small dot of resin. how many asters are poisonous. i have the space if not the pad. not that i don’t want to be accommodated. letting light leave the room. nails long from the manicure after she peels the shell of green i have to run it over my tongue. man on the bridge blowing balloons and then releasing them into the water, the half tide of the estuary carrying itself away from us. i jerk off after i cry or else before i don’t remember. attempting to make something flat. happy with how
  
     the vine turns on itself. in conversation i say servitude instead of celibacy, immediately incredulous of the slip. today was my day. what is edible in the family of lily. many flowers. me the girl boy the baby girl ever in a state of sensitivity. slight weight. same thing twice tastes bad. happy to look at a sentence or stone.
  
     returning to the lodge at evening a mist turns itself up from the pond and again below its drainage into the meadow. the sun brings heat it also brings color. removing the papery sheaths from the pale fruit to let light penetrate. a plant does not propagate itself even if it is said to do so. every act needs an agent. every agent needs me to model myself in its image. wild light over the hills to the west like an erratic spotlight or else lightning though there is nothing
  
     to hear except insect wind frog and the day was hardly hot enough to produce real drama. when asked whether the trees deeper into the woods grew taller or whether that was just a hill her hosts are silent and then slyly nod, locking their eyes with hers. now let me rub your hands, the girl closest to her says.
  
     several inches of dirt have been removed to reveal a faded mosaic large enough for five or six girls to comfortably sleep on. the milky channels that cut across the crystal are soft and susceptible to the impressions of stray matter. not that the integrity of the stones and the plane they make must be protected but in becoming scratched a stone is made to show its interior against its own inclination. to receive a wound that i want is to be transported; to be scratched by a stray branch or to stub a toe proves the world’s hold. not right to conceive of grace
  
     as a form of convenience. she lowers herself to take in the warped knob. the mouth is a useful instrument not because digestion begins there but because it is wet. whatever is opened is wet and whatever opens too spills some of its own wet. to suck what sticks is to return its wet so that it will stick again. not that a demand is satisfied but that it is dissolved. in water

     the hand wants to turn in on itself. the stones by the river the same green as the sky through the bedroom window. where the water eddies in distorted ripples the stones underwater magenta. at our touch their pale cast flakes off in fractured sheets, the residue of a bleached algae. musty, salty, a faint licorice note. below the slip
  
     of the stream extends a rough stone wall over which water forces itself and below the stone wall a terrace of sorts on which two girls sit. the shorter of the pair hikes the other up into her lap, pivots herself closer to the cascade. still holding the head of the light haired girl, she tips backward until both of their heads enter the mirror of the falls. behind a waterfall is a cavity. after several minutes the shorter one emerges, and then the other, nearly, still cradled. the sound of the falls
  
     changes with the slight diversion of its easy path. the shorter girl steadies the other as she tips her back again, leaving exposed a long neck across which she slides her clenched hand and then slides again, this second pass trailing red that now runs down them both. difficult to distinguish their forms in the air and spray that rises and is made reflective in the high sun.
  
     holding the fruit in her left hand juice runs down her finger. it is an obvious scene but why. wetness is what is made to come out. what excites is when the inside of something is shown. closer to the pit the flesh is sharper. acid clings to the fibers caught between my teeth. running her fingernail between her teeth. impossible always to ascertain in which gap is strung the stuck bit. were the remainder unbearable it could be removed but it is not. better to let it ripen, meaning to rot, a day or two later slipping it loose with a length of thread that presses into the gums, salt smell of blood mixing with the off smell of the dislodged morsel. fruit will only ripen
  
     to a certain point once removed from the vine or the branch. the track of rot is indifferent. seeing her hand slick with the clear juice. she will lick it and what is licked will enter the mouth where it will rot. the inevitability is not what thrills but the drama of determination. good to watch something spat back up not because it is wasted but because once removed it might be returned. not only to the mouth that spat but any mouth including mine. what stimulates is not that all of what is returned to air will be returned to bowels but that it won’t, that some slick will remain on her chin, on my forearm. that it might dry there making a layer of skin that might be excised later on in the day or tomorrow.
  
     feeling of being dead or not of being dead exactly. feeling of being alive but already dead. whatever happened in the past happened while i was alive; whatever happens now happens while i am dead. experience, which is only verifiable retroactively, shows that i am alive; or i was when i did whatever i experienced. leaning over the prow of the ship, trailing a finger in the water which each time is thicker and more full with matter than expected. a thread of seaweed catches on her hand, clings when instinct recoils. she closes a fist over the rope, the casting of salt cracking, sloughing off. before boarding an attendant asks her about pain tolerance. seven, eight? he says to her hesitation. something like that. unsure of how that information could possibly be put to use.

     unsure of whether the question is for me the person or me the passenger. the patient waves of the bay are agitated by the boat’s momentum. i flatter myself to think that my interest in pain is evident on my brow. a sweater proves inadequate to the artificial wind of travel. the attendant wraps her in a blanket that smells like it has been stowed onboard a long time. when she turns back the pilot gives her a knowing look. waves are unpredictable because they are made by the sun which is too far away, too compelling to know fully. grass is made by wind too, seeds swept up in a current
  
     i can’t see, deposited on the other side of the highway or continent. i read that the earth is enclosed by such currents which along with grass seed also bear small spiders who cast their webbing as sails in advance of their small bodies. a spider’s body is not small to herself. like any body its smallness is intermittent. the problem with a conception of the world as composed of intersecting waves is that it presupposes knowing what a wave will do. a vibe isn’t what it is. if mathematically it is possible to disarticulate a complex wave into a series of ever more elemental waves at varying amplitudes the resulting tabulation tells little of the inclination of each wave to rest or to flee or to bear or be borne—inclinations which cannot be said to be identical. i know that i will die but the problem is i already have. only i can’t remember when.
  
     her eyes shutter, fluid rolling into them and out, the thicker fluid trailing her hairline her brow soluble in her tears or sweat that then spills and catches on the rag held in her mouth catches on the rope that holds the rag in her mouth. dull taste of fiber. remembering that fabric is a grain and as such is subject to pests. perfect blue stamen of chicory. having to wear a hat but suddenly not liking how it obscures my vision. wanted to be held so that i could confess. really fucking up my nose. to be invested in an object is to be attached to the project of thinking about it, which doesn’t mean i am thinking about it. wind goes where. amazed someone could want an accidental death.