if . . .

... the huge yellow bellied bird flew directly at you ... it was early afternoon ... bright ... yesterday had been dark ... the clouds had let you sleep ... not today ... the festering open sore on your ring finger from the burn of many days and miles ago worried you ... ... the bird flew at the window ... you gasped ... it wanted to peck at the sore ... you clean the sore with your tongue ... you’ve been told saliva is the best medicine ... you don’t remember who told you or if it’s true ... still you suck the sore ... ... mosquitoes silently sucked your blood at night ... you wake to mounds of red blotches ... don’t scratch ... press your nail next to the redness and make an exclamation mark ... you’ve been told that helps ... actually you just made that up ... yet you believe it does help ... ... how much of everything you say is made up ... you peel away ... this is what comes back in memory ... let time slip away ... the will to stop dying ... you don’t care if you

... just finished reading Jacob Wren “ Authenticity is a Feeling ” on the plane to Seoul ... in fact read the entire book on airplanes ... what sticks the most is the passage describing going to a round dance: “ ... that this was what I’d always been looking for in art. The way everyone could participate or not participate, how the dancing and singing and drumming was just going on in and around us, part of daily life, and at the same time we were all always part of it. (Well… I wasn’t but everyone else seemed to be.) Since, of course, this wasn’t only or even mainly art, it was culture in a larger sense. ... I couldn’t help but think: wasn’t this related to what I’ve always been working on. A performative feeling of community where the performers were no different from the audience, where everyone knew the rules yet engaged with them in some way where the rules barely seemed to matter at all. I was of course watching all of this as an outsider and a settler. I had no idea what