Tell me about yourself. Inflection expresses pleasure. Where are you from? A house with many drawers and in each one is a bird. Your race? Monarch orange and bristling. What do you do? The wind picks up. How do you do it? I dig out the seed with a nail. Do you believe in progress? Evolution is spelled erratically. Politics? Bark, split and patched with lichen. And your heroes? Shadows trade places. What are your ambitions? Oxygen flows through a window and I lose track of it. Pursuits? Affection, direction. What do you value? Attention is currency. Best advice? In the morning, the stimulation of water; later, of letters. In a word? Hammock. Or havoc.
Reprinted from Contingent Ardor with the permission of Kelsey St. Press. Copyright © 2002 by Denise Liddell Lawson. All rights reserved.