LOVING THAT WHICH IS ABSENT
They and they love. The object loves and knows where to kneel, the dust, the red glass. Red is substance, red earth arched into form, red sulphur, red blood, red cover of a book perched on the edge of a table, red arrow pointing in four directions: one to home, the red; one to the dead who are absent in white clay; to the living, above water; and to that which is most absent, more absent than the dead.
A VIOLENT SITUATION
A hand can only grasp, amidst The movement of a few muscles and it grasps nothing. A red eye flickers into the dark absence in search of the substance. Brush away, raise a finger to the wind brush aside with the back of the hand. The first sweep will be a cleansing, the second a revelation.
THE SUBSTANCE WILL GRASP
Metal replaces the white eyes. And replaces the body or flesh we are accustomed to see walking. Bore me a hole to see (the last hole through which to see, much if nothing it is grey, or silver). Cut through with a sharp tool, tool on metal makes the good noise we know then it is present. When a hammer strikes a nail it is present. At the cutting edge of the blade it is, that which the hand will fail to grasp. Emerges from silence, falls into silence again.
A HOLLOW NOISE AND SUCH IS
Of knowing. Of the serpent’s forked tongue a split road pointing one way towards the white clay mouldable, and one towards the living. At the end of both roads hear the hammer, bolt and nail driven down by the weight of much earth, of gravity. A hollow noise expresses that which is absent again the indelible absence endured under breeze, under breath.
—Vanessa Onwuemezi