Anne Germanacos - Casting Toward Invisible Pools

Anne Germanacos

Casting Toward Invisible Pools

My hands are fragile, liable to inflammation. Poor hands.

Here, wind blows a dainty song through the turbines, amassing, filling up the batteries.

At lunch, we ate nine-month-old lamb, grilled.

Swimming backstroke, one propels oneself into the unknown.

Even when she’s dressed now, my mother is essentially naked. (Oh, all of us are, of course.)

Every day after lunch, I eat a few squares of dark chocolate. I pretend that it’s nourishment but truly it’s a small reprieve.

Fooling around with pain--it occupies me.

Hungry, but the kitchen floor is still wet.

The trajectory of one’s work may be shaped by the geography of the one’s body.

As my hands, which are in some sense little tongues and mouths, lose elasticity, the continent of my work will shrink. I will need to find tighter forms to work in, not wanting to waste what usefulness my hands still contain.

The mid-night panic--awaiting details of a death, flights looming, public appearance. A black dress.

Is honesty only one more self-deception?

From the NYT: “For the brain, remembering is a lot like doing…”

Sugar and too much food weigh heavily on the mind. Literally--when you eat too much, you can’t think.

The worm that came in yesterday on a handful of roses was a kind of friend. I watched it circle a wide-mouthed cup for hours.

I suppose you’ll think that was cruel.

between languages (mute)

I keep smelling fire but I can’t see any wind.

The soft place between languages where the brain simply attends and mimics, dismissive of meaning. It’s easy to get stuck there, entranced.

My husband and I are like Click and Clack. Or Flick and Flack. Knick Knack? Knock Knock?

My brain isn’t cooperating but the weather is gorgeous.

Outside, he’s cutting. Roots? Overgrown vines? Leaves?

I hear wind in the turbines, making the energy that allows me to see words as I type them onto this machine. It is all his doing. I take not one bit of credit for this set of facts.

The cutting continues. Only something concentrated like a rose bush could offer the constant snip I hear, as if he’s cutting his nails or those of a tree.

Casting toward invisible pools--it’s the act of casting that invents them.