The Clearing, volume 49
Press sheets from Fragments from the Stacked Deck; The book began in outrage, a response to the increasing reports of violence against women in the world. Its ending marks a beginning, of understanding and balance. Text fragments were taken from the daily news, juxtaposed with one woman’s voice. Printed at Nexus press on a one-color Heidelberg. ISNN 0-932526-52-7 1995; sewn on linen tapes, bound into wood covers with antique wood type. Includes deck of cards inserted into the book front. 2011
Poetry: Ginny Hoyle
Codex: 9” high x 9” wide x 5” deep; opens to 22”
Sculptural table: 57 ½” x 27” x 26”, steel, Christopher Hecker
Part of Exhibition: When We Were Birds
As Good As Gone
He said: I will always be your bullet, deadly, irresistible,
drunk on praise and no one will come to save you.
The night sky is a vast bloodthirsty field and Orion,
caught with his pants down,
will never have time to draw his sword.
You are falling, fallen,
you’re as good as gone.
She said: For a while, I had it made.
I had skeleton keys, maps, the entire broken code.
But the whole mess slid from my pocket like a slippery fish–
same way I lost my phone. For some reason, I came home.
He said: Our arguments have lives of their own.
They circle the globe trailing space junk:
pizza boxes, sippy cups, mismatched socks and tax forms.
She said: Once I was a woman
who rocked the boat that rocked our world.
Once I was rooted in the loam of Eden.
I was a woman who swept and baked and sang.
There was reaping,
there was chopping,
there was soup on the stove.
He said: The more we tried the more we failed,
the more we talked the less we heard,
the harder we pressed the faster we flew apart,
until the heavens and the silenced birds
were falling down around us in the broken dark.
She said: As the whole thing comes unstuck, what then?
What becomes of all the silent dinners, accusations,
the mundane soapy details of a lost life?
Was it all just a ball of something scary moving fast?
He said: You’ll be sorry.
You’ll be lost. You will live alone forever
with a roof that leaks and a cat that pees.
Maybe you will die.
She said: This is what it is, then.
Broken. And I am alone in the forest
without a sandwich or a torch.
Something bewildering is over.
Where can I turn?
He said: Look, your shoulders tremble.
You are hungry, you are weak,
you are small and you are tired.
It’s getting dark and growing cold.
See that safe cozy cottage in the clearing?
I am there in a warm bed, waiting.
I have wine.
She said: Don’t wait up.
The trail through the forest is faint in the moonlight
but it shows.
I am close by.
I see the light in your window.
I smell the smoke from your fire.
I am armed, yes, but I’m putting down the knife.
I am done mincing words.
I am good.
I am going.
I’m as good as gone.
