I thought I had exhausted all my metaphors: various prey; coins
inserted slant, jamming vending machines; cartoon hand over cartoon
mouth. I studied grim histories of hysterical patients, listened
to accounts of fish who change their sex to breed. I thought I knew what all
there is to know about glass: a viscous liquid forced to acquiesce
to rigidity. If I could learn the posture well enough I’d know
how to unlearn it. I practiced exhaustively. I was practicing
today as I sat smoking. Next door three men were lowering a door-
sized piece of plywood from the building’s distant roof. Above, one reversed
a winch while below another gathered slack, taming the spent plywood’s
wild twists. A third man stood, watched the plank pirouette toward several windows,
waited for the swinging scrap to reach the ground. You think I’m telling you
the story of the plank; how it feels to be trussed, grappled over. But
I am the third man, waiting for some purpose to come into my hands.
