from against which
Joel Chace
A fleshed wedge grandma makes of
the child’s face, by squeezing it.
Grandpa brings a hand mirror: they
all giggle. Parmeniscus, in the Trophonean
cave, lost the ability to laugh
but acquired it again on Delos
upon seeing a shapeless block that
was said to be the image
of the goddess Leto. This girl
learns to roll her eyes back
into her head, only the whites
still showing; now she can look
at her mother and hear her
say, If you’re not careful, you’ll
freeze that way. In addition to
the birth of a new spirit,
we need a technician for re-adjusting
Matter around us: and this is
a most difficult side of things.
A fleshed wedge gestures toward some
future, which exists no more than
present or past. But a gesture’s
a gesture. Time’s violence rends the
soul; and by that rent eternity
enters.
One glimpsed fish could be a
sibling, could be a precursor. Distance
is the soul of beauty. She
claims that, as a girl, swimming
out at the lake, she’d grab
a sunny’s tail, and — unaided — it
would pull her along. If contradiction
holds, then healing — under surfaces. Each
time he casts from the reservoir’s
shore, he tilts his head. I
can, with one eye squinted, take
it all as a blessing. With
his lowered water-eye, he must see
that trout at the exact moment
it takes the fly. He jerks
the line back toward his air-eye,
and hooks the fish. You shall
know the truth, and it will
make you odd. Could be a
criminal. Could be a bond. If
contradiction holds then healing under surfaces.
You cannot have the truth in
such a way that you catch
it, but only in such a
way that it catches you.
One glimpsed fish doesn’t presuppose another,
nor its impossibility. Could be solace.
Could be contraband. After all, zero
didn’t make it to Europe until
the twelfth century. A no does
not hide anything, but a yes
very easily becomes a deception. He
has to practice somehow; so — far
inland — he stands at his porch
railing and hurls the net, again
and again, onto dead grass. The
apprehension of necessity is an imitation
of creation. Intractable caution halts transcendence;
however, yearning sanctifies. That trek up
from the river, across pastures, past
barn buildings, and — at last — into
the great hall filled with water-creature
exhibits. And troops of green parrots
were passing, too. Intractable caution halts
transcendence however yearning sanctifies.
Joel Chace has published work in print and electronic magazines such as Lana Turner, Survision, E·ratio, Otoliths, Word For/Word, Golden Handcuffs Review, New American Writing and The Brooklyn Rail. His full-length collections include matter no matter, from Paper Kite Press, Humors, from Paloma Press, Threnodies, from Moria Books, fata morgana, from Unlikely Books, and Maths, from Chax Press. Underrated Provinces is just out from MadHat Books. For more than forty years, Chace was a working jazz pianist. He is an NEH Fellow.