Relic Environments Trilogy: Book I, Part 1.ii

from Book I, Part, 1, Mystery Tramp Eclogues 


Honour
From the eaves, a few melt-water drops,
painted in reed shadow.

He waits upon the figure a little way off,
the kinsman knelt in frost.

The one kneeling gathers up time,
and with it folds the gutting-knife.
The other hears a heartbeat pass
and, stepping forward, fans a longer blade,
from the butterfat of neck the jet,
on perfect falls of snow
its sudden signature.

In Murakami’s Norwegian Wood,
a scene: two friends sitting on the roof
watching the surrounding town
as it burns…

I’m white trash, not Japanese,
and it was the mountains to the east, and I
not making a move
on the girl I was with, but otherwise
the scene exactly the same, the injuries too,
exactly like my own, the way she said
I had to wait my turn.

The clouds of smoke looked amazing,
the fire on the mountain a billowing, tincture red.