MYTHAXIS, Rus Khomutoff

I was hand, body, liquid ruled by the dark seas/rapture honeycombed in flesh/crosscurrents of understanding/horrorotica mythaxis grind/describes what the new normal is like/streaming eye of syndication/this is one of those moments when everything coalesces/conversations with the light/wishpenny inflections/give a heart across a hundred evenings in the sire of the battle cry/blood testament life/marathon premium stay true machine sympathy stigma to status story ritual burying the cruel truth/sorry,not sorry celebrity news/what we are doing is harboring the savage point/master of metaphor decium riff/one does not dream, one is dreamed/wisdom in the foam sword words equidistant/calm over everything just like the unspeakable word/and these questions they give us no rest/one indivisible and forever/arm of exuberance, shore of elan/tale of the loop/orbit dance doctor tomorrow/howl of the deranged protocol infinite terrain spawning infinite game/noise of the crimes between us/theartifice.com/override the remembering gain/street fever decennial hybrid mind embrace/jettison the feel phantom drift assuming the mask. Overthrow the self/an airborne disease, a beautiful thing that never happened/glistening in the rays of a distant supernova,mercurial staff take your breath away/pirate blood/nautical dawn/wild blossom/intercept canvas redux,church of trees scream in silence.There was superimposition & worry at a certain hour of the day/hyena season genesis grasp secret psalm in search of duende/this eventuality’s carnival row exit in memory reclaiming time with unexpected grace notes/vagabond of the margins/burning up the green guardian/assignations crestfallen between music & silence/carnivalesque Xerox & infinity/ dimension horizon stasis leak everlasting/cherub chance the undying matter anticipating nowhere/theramin cost victim of illusion priceless channel /follow me into the reprieve best private fantasy times two/taste of holiday gross hesitation/to dance in the dark without fear/imperial violets distant shore/venerable plight/checkered koan/the other side of no tomorrow/the lost symbol/ naked reflections complex crossed/prism walls infolio segmented balsam flex/new letters renaissance hum/a guessing game of infinity/ fastpass body everything/a painted sea of semiprecious stones interrupted by the illusion of time/sentimental rove the beginning/depthcruiser hour of pearl wayward son dispatches/ skin of wind, skin of streams, skin of shadows, the secret of numbers unscrambling the distortions/infinite perimeter/melancholy body sacrilege/tattoo highway insomnia punk/passion post of the absent everyday/venus endeavor ministering blithe spirits/wonderment cyclorama/lost in the omnipresent origin echo unlimited/mirror for mankind/thorn exhortation

A SMALL, WHITE BOTTLE, James Cagney

             I hadn’t seen her in more than 20 years. I had to ask for a hug. She paused, as to think: Did I pack one? We took a breakfast of family drama centered around her aunts' only son and his pack of dogs. He was last to the table, New Girlfriend in his wake. He hugged me, long-time ______ to his aunt and adoptive mother. The 8-year old I once knew is now a hairy, rugged dude who laughs easily since his mother now holds all the reasons to frown. Over breakfast, she fell mute after he sat at the table. She paid the check, financial problems whatever, and in turn was offered not even a crumb-sized Thank You.

But anyway, my friend said. Back to me now, she said.

She passed her phone for a séance of photos -- a white tiger cub in proxy for having no children, her smiling brilliant and alone before a Niagara Falls robed in fog. She waved off photos of her mother and brother taken at the same restaurant where she’d once, foolishly, married.

But anyway, she said. Never mind that, she said.

We ate. When the waiter reached for her untouched plate, she growled un-ironically and kept going. The boy and his lady laughed. The boys’ mother did not. I begged the waiter to stop pouring coffee, even as my friend could not stop talking. So we waited.

After breakfast, the boy showed off his pit-bull terriers. One sociable girl, one suspicious boy, one blue-eyed puppy. The only one who survived, he said, lifting the shivering pup out of my arms.

My friend and I then waved to the boy, the girl, the frowning aunt, and the smiling dogs and drove across a town she hadn’t seen since high school. It was the same and not the same. As we were. Forgot something back at the hotel, she said. As she drove, I rushed my decade summary before she snatched the conversation and ran.

The loneliness of the long distance conversationalist. I, her valet of words.

I sat on the twin bed across from her. Audience to her vaudeville of years.

Mid-monologue, I raise my hand, ask: How do you keep from drowning in your own life?

And right then, she marches over to the dresser to exalt her one, true and faithful God. The One who never falters. In her palm, a small white bottle glowed.

She'd asked her doctor for either the answer to everything or how to make everything stop, and her doctor said: Take These. She talked through me as opposed to with me. Compressed the word suicide into a syllable so small I nearly missed it. But it was there, like a pill rolled beneath an oven. She was dazzling – cursive landscape of hair, triumphant hips. I’ve loved her for a fourth of my life. So what. The friend who dated her back when we were teens, once asked why I never, Why I Never. Whatever I was to her over the years, was nowhere near as devoted as the benediction rattling like keys in her tight little fist.