Jan 14, 2014
Share:
In the dream, you stand at the end
of the field beyond the house.
You bury something.
Your hands glow like milk in the dark.
You bend, your shovel lifts pieces
of moonlight into the air.
I try to call you inside
but my mouth locks with frost.
The room of the skull floods with snow.
I have forgotten how you sound.
Your hands fall like milk
into the well of darkness you dig
and I cannot see beyond it.
This is to say, I wake
with a deeper void. I am beginning
to see the body as a well
and your absence as a thirst
that pushes its hands
down my throat, lifts the bucket,
drinks and drinks. A saint said
when the dead visit us in dreams
they cannot know what they do.
You came to the field.
You cut off your ears.
Your hands fell through me—
two lights I almost broke
in half wanting. Tell me
what you thought you were doing
when you tried to lay your body
into that ground.
While we have you...
...we need your help. Confronting the many challenges of COVID-19—from the medical to the economic, the social to the political—demands all the moral and deliberative clarity we can muster. In Thinking in a Pandemic, we’ve organized the latest arguments from doctors and epidemiologists, philosophers and economists, legal scholars and historians, activists and citizens, as they think not just through this moment but beyond it. While much remains uncertain, Boston Review’s responsibility to public reason is sure. That’s why you’ll never see a paywall or ads. It also means that we rely on you, our readers, for support. If you like what you read here, pledge your contribution to keep it free for everyone by making a tax-deductible donation.
January 14, 2014