Thick Description
Eleanor Chai
I cut lines of ink as I read through the night.
I imagine the margins1 on pages are slim wings
between plankton2 and stars. I find what I need
in far sources. I make them intimate,
I make them mine with the speed of light.
He was seventeen, just a man, still a boy and ready to die.
A true sacrifice, a living encounter --
This father has paid
the sum of a daughter's dowry for his son to be consecrated
with a rod through his cheeks and tongue. The boy's face,
his mouth pierced and gaping3, hangs on the page, helpless.
His clove-jelly eyes float and metamorphose into my mother's
eyes, eyes I can't possibly remember without images like his --
images forbidden, seized and smuggled4 into my life.
I can make anything mean what I need to find.
The stolen scrap5, the plosive glance saturated6 in
longing is not looking at me: I am looking at it.
Every description is thick with a will to revivify --
