From The Morning

From the Morning

OR, DIFFERENT WAYS OF LOOKING AT THE SOUND THAT THE WOODEN BOARDS OF THE FLOOR MAKE IN THE MORNING WHEN YOU STEP OUT OF YOUR BED TO START THE DAY

i The crack sounds painful. Your floorboard is a dying man on which arm you stepped. You snapped his bone. It was an accident, and you’re terrified. But you deserve the shock, the impossible shock, because you hurt it, whatever it was, because you broke something. ELISA SABBADIN

You shouldn’t have moved. You cracked it because you existed. And it was still dark, and you didn’t really want to, didn’t really mean to.

ii The crack sounds painful. Good morning! You prevailed on the world. Your floorboard is one of the infinite mysterious fibers of reality, and You, You played it like the string of a harp, and it replied, melodic. You are its master, you the creator. The foot commands, the wood obeys.

You’re about to eat the day raw, You are the lion and it’s your gazelle.

iii The crack sounds painful. There’s a degree of necessary violence in every beginning. Your day is hatching.

50 | SEPTEMBER 2019

Very well then, let’s let it all crack

it’s still early and the violence

still innocent