A Thousand Faces

The distance between action and call.

I can be mother, too! he offered, thinking of cameos and not the tedium of tending. 

But I can weave! He insisted, stomping the last of the grass. 

What about fire? I can make it! But there was no wood. 

A sacrament, then, anything but penance! 

Purification sounded lofty, so long as the means was anything but silence. 

A song! ––His chest swelled to the imaginary chorus. But she had given those already, to deaf ears. 

I will dance you to the moon! But her feet were bruised from carrying his weight. 

He claimed to want a friend, some unifying vision. At last he arrived, the ever-faithful witness to the glory of his own reflection, and its deep pools went on and on.

Unkeeping

Embedded promise.

This is more than a box, more than any one thing at a time. More than the sharp line or the sum of coordinates of any of my known locations. This geometry is made of history, and it is personal.

Secret language of liquid belonging, live. Return me to the distance, remind me back to its original embrace.

***

Inspired by the art of Torkwase Dyson, borrowing phrases from her installations: Unkeeping (2016), Liquid Belonging (2022) and I Belong to the Distance (2016).