Theodore Worozbyt

The Question

I climbed the flame tree, the most colorful tree, sat down in it and waited. Cardinals dripped from the branches, their pompadours blood or ash. Geodes lay far or deep away. It’s all pumice now, that floats on tides, or obsidian, black glass no more a rock than I am a tiny flat casket filled with someone else’s songs. So much of what I feel is a habitual paralysis of what I remember wanting, I would as soon court injury as delight. Herkimer diamonds, far too clear and gigantic. What has truly happened to me, beyond this toe pain? The light overhead is a spider, not a fixture. I am covered with the red bumps of myself. The calfskin on my calves is so thin you can see the blood move. What is a go-coo monkey? Call me calico. Imagine the place you’d least like to find a tick. Don’t try and wait out the syrup or the story, or even s for that matter. That’s not advice. I just say that quite banal thing between spells of…well, spells, as a way of answering.