The Truth

 

This is as much as we knew:
The truth was an infinite list.
The truth was a box of nouns.
I fell into the truth, trying to explain it.
I wrote in two hands—one was better.
The census taker came to count me.
His name, God help him, was Frank.
The truth shone out of the dirt on his shoes.
It was better than me.
It destroyed my stuff.
It blinded me; it was so dark; it was so bright.
What happened next was indeed true:
All the people lined up in rings around the earth.
The truth came in the form of a powerful verb.
It happened in time.
It happened to everything in the box.
It formed the border between itself and itself.
An invisible bar horizoned in both directions,
the people lifting it or swinging.
It moved so quickly it became a sphere.
On one side of it was the truth.
On the other side was the truth.
I woke up from dreaming of myself dreaming of myself.

Aus: Komm her o Klarheit! luxbooks 2009
Original aus: The Captain Lands in Paradise. Alice James Books, 2002

Sarah Manguso    14.05.2009