Dina and Dan Cannot Retain Anything

Or it’s its being in the past

On a January evening

A man standing by himself

Though there was talk of a place to go, somewhere in the distance

A state formed in geologic gouge marks, carried into the present, the activity,

If it can be called that, of one in recollection

Which should compete

When I start to go after it, the distinction between analysis and critique

The imperative it became You have what I want

Finger pointing, now you stomp it

Now the whole light changes

A sexless person rises up between them to negate

The old people who wanted things to stay the same.

They wanted to bury the dead upside down

They liked the inconvenience of having to hire a man to "to turn up the earth"

I’m sorry for your loss. The door is open. Condolence is

The question is open. Who are these new people coming to town?

On a January evening

A man was appropriating the grief of a family

Turned out of their house. He left her. She left him.

Things had taken a turn

Eh? You are left with the task of sorting out the ideas of yourself

You had never had. What was it you were saying?

These are of a higher order

He waved his hand.

They posit an asterisk, a mark, they contain more depth of spirit and height of imagination.

They suggest I don’t have an understanding of the relationship between form and content.

It’s hard because it doesn’t feel true, to say, I can’t say.

I think I mean by true the coming into being of the notion of grief

Or its splendor and costliness that I greeted

On a day in February

There was a man standing

On the ice of the lake where the children went with faces of evening

Ashamed to have undone their sense of the unexpectedness of daylight

Standing on the ice over the girl trapped under it

Though there was talk of a place to go being made

In the distance, it was under the ice

Where they would seek themselves and without warning

Say into the microphone in your head you should compete with the old places to go

The people were still content to go to the old places

But I can't say that

For its having been said is the very fact of your survival

Yet you will not save me

I walked into the kitchen, he said

The refrigerator was not on top of the counter. The walls were not

He apologized he could not save her

From himself. But I was the one who made an error of his appearance.

It is not the dress I am wearing

That the foundation on which one offers their condolence is

Wearing thin

No I can’t say that because I don’t know. It is not a woman. He said. It’s mom. It is not such an easy thing to say. The place where we put Mom is in so and so. A place. And we put.

You put people in places.

I have been put in my place.

On a January evening

A man was standing

He had decided to put her somewhere, taking into account various externalities.

How far is Holland from Grand Rapids he said. How far is New York from Grand Rapids he said how far is Düsseldorf from New York and New York from Denver and the doldrums in Denver how far is it to Detroit from Brussels and the train where they read Clepsydra together and he promised himself he would marry this girl who looked unlike anyone he had ever seen while they watched a mother read to her child in English so that his mind could grow he pointed it at the sun. He said I should know distances, routes. They are easy to look up. I could find a specific answer, write a specific answer. Would he know now how to dip back into the past for a sense of that which about them was always pre-existing? It returns now to him, full of the people he had known. He said how far is it to the subway. I can’t fly directly anywhere anymore he said I suffer he said the tickets are too expensive. I don’t have any money. He said I have tons of money. I have some money. But I’d like to keep it for when I want something. What I’m thinking of this as always I love you he said.