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   c o u r t e s a n

--- R A N D A L L   C O U C H

 

What I hunger for is not a parable of anything. —Susan Mitchell

Trail your lazy tongue around my lips, she said, and learn this truth: what interests you is empty. That truth is facile.

All capability is negative or haven't you been keeping up? A hole, for God's sake, fuit ante Helenam belli causa.

What you recall is not yours, or part only, is not how it was; you won't find any substance at the heart of it.

What you have lost is indeterminate, the space between particles, circumference of chance. It was restless as dice.

So she instructed me. And I'd concede enough to wonder— How does pain arise from emptiness?

Put your mouth on mine, she said, and mark the threshold of the world. We bite off as much nothing as we can chew—

boundary makes meaning, we live on the edge. If shape is not given, no tears in the nature of things, then we take shape—

so isn't it pretty clear how we should proceed?

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