do you want to know what language i’m wearing. where birds
used to gather not. calling but admitting you anymore
find them: turned thoroughly. snow
in-
sul-
ates the
tele
phone
wires is. woman’s garment. shaping from the signal what
used to be called. in days not anymore. well-remembered but
neither altogether stricken from. the record its. figure. the wires cross
dressing (
change
of sex regarded in that time as
fore
ground
to prophecy:
the
future lifting up its skirt) are turned anymore. to winter
and inside it. payphone. ringing. just-visible inside a snowdrift. your
bolting (as
of
lace)
from the door to catch that when it. wakes you. and no signal
coming down the line but. static. your Hello? sidling on white noise: language
of your
very
own
ossicles
wring
ing them
selves
out. this:
this alone reaches you now. is the booth. the small room you’ve walked not un-
knowingly into was. prefigured. in not (as used. to be) the
language. colourful. of birds but in their. silence. as
the first
head
lines were breaking
mornings
were already quiet: FLYCATCHERS,
SWALLOWS AND
WARBLERS
‘FALLING OUT
OF THE
SKY.’
tawny
hail pelts the coasts it used. to be swallows to. wake you. would come
home. benign (as in spring) alarm lifting the. figure. of telephone
wires from the wires. anymore is snow
blind. anymore
you get
the
ring.
in the booth is static leaving. nothing. to imagination. the pay
phone’s plastic. liver coos into your ear (where you have. imagined
instead the
lover) as she
recites the
news.
here
it all is
she tells you:
here. leaving. us—what are we playing at? what’s my role. here. who calls
on payphones anymore. who gives. the sign. everyone can tell.
the future. i can give everything. away. am
merely static.
figur
ing it
self
for
your pleasure. that’s
my
drone bird voice
now. coo
ing. head
lines you believed were someone else’s. future. are spinning
in the alley. trodden-on in oily. snow. they are my dress. my night-
clothes:
take
them i say and
so you
take them.
you are
coming
out
of sleep. so we can at least speak. materially. about the fibers of your
dreams again. your filaments. the firm
ament and its
many wintering
birds: poly
carb
on
ate
black
lips
flapping incorruptibly (as bodies of certain female saints) south
toward. the great pacific waste heap. was it my ring
ing
tore
you
from that. Oh the swallows do return! i heard you. say even from
the anymore side. of the line. heard you. inside your bolting
like. you believed the skirts. were lifted
your
days of pro
phe
cy
were come again: you could be auspice. avispex. looker
at the birds. eyes bared and. receiving...
—do you like it when i call you
solo
mon?
i ask you as you tug. no future but the. anymore. down its burnt-out wires. you
can call me anything. i can be wearing any sex. you like. for this
is your. signal.
now
was that
ossicles or.
icicles
? if
i’m cutting
out.
it’s
time. to put another nickel in. the nick of time. which is my
nick.
my
plastic
swal
low
voice curls
up inside your ear is. talking backwards and. are the lips
of prophecy everting. you must recall a place
where
birds.
still
fall
instead of snow. where collapse is only just. happening. there’s still time
you. haven’t woken up too late. now. dig
for change. the morning isn’t quiet
no
is
speech
less