One Day Later
When the words do
not resolve, but clank and die next to
each other.
—Cedar Sigo
And here I am –
no, there he is.
Here we are on
page one, and
we’re making
noises with our
pencils, our mark
ers, our writing
utensils. And what
utility (tonight’s
guest is gleaming
and looks very out-
of-place on Jimmy
Kimmel)! In design
er jewelry. Which
brings me to text.
Texting is design
(textuality). This
I believe. Hold on
to me for just a mo
ment, if you will. I’m
not talking about fing
ering a phone – not
that sort of texting
(nor am I saying I’m
not young enough to
be well-versed; or
too old to get quite
a bit of what there
is to get about meth
ods of communication).
There’s a lot of things
that I’m not saying,
here – about pecking
at little buttons-not-
buttons that are,
in fact, teeny-tiny,
ok, small – rect
angles we all too
often think of meta
phorically as hearts,
as heart-shaped
hearts, whether
many of them,
row after row,
a multitude,
that is, or
maybe just
two, maybe
just one, which,
if you’ve been
around perhaps
as long as I have
you might make like
punching out “less
than” “three,” which
would, in fact, and
tautologically, be,
for example, two,
which, sadly, could
just as easily be
one, or – and who
cares if, right? –
could be less than
zero (whose zero-
headed thoughts
go now to Robert
Downey Junior and
the windmills to and
from Palm Springs) –
that is, less than or
equal to zero. No,
no. I mean texting:
the physical act of
drawing words, let
ter by letter upon a
page, let’s say. The
act of writing. Which
I do now: I write a
green sentence across
this page (before it is
sprawled across a
screen, like so).
A page from a
book that I stole
from a sidewalk
some four or five
years ago. Or per
haps I took it from
the shelter’s library
(which was a tall,
chewed-up looking
stained bookshelf
that stood in the
breakroom of said
shelter, the place I
called home for a
year and a half)
(The shelter; that
“library.”). What
home has a break
room? could be the
beginning of a droll
joke – another line
or two that now live
in a notebook begun
(by all the evidence
I have rather effort
lessly gathered) as
somebody’s diary,
as someone else’s
private book, its
first few pages
still mostly filled
with what appears
to be the scrawled
thoughts and desires
of an individual who
never intended to
part ways with these
pages, unless by some
accidental chance it
were to be found by
one particular person
(and only her; she,
alone, might find
this book lying so
forlorn upon the
sidewalk, as it is,
will be, was, in the
middle of this city
a hush falls upon).
The author finishes
a third page of scrib
bled thoughts, a hush
having fallen upon
the city, the side
walk, the notebook,
its pages, the author
of what appears on
pages one through
three, and then a
bunch of pigeons
who must’ve been
the rooftop of the
building propping up the
author’s very back; and
what pigeons, this bunch,
flapping their wings
all messily, moving
from this roof to
the rooftop of
the building
just across the
street from a
biographer:
author of this
love letter.
These
pigeons make
a lot of noise for
a small amount
of time, the a
mount of time
it takes for all
of them to move
from one rooftop
to an almost iden
tical rooftop directly
across Mission Street.
“Carrier pigeons,”
the artist writes
near the bottom
of the third page
of the newish note
book as the hush
that had enveloped
the city moments
before is interrupted
by the birds’ return,
the last two words
written in furious
scritches and
scratches in
pencil, so
that when
the latest hush
begins to blanket
the day, the blips
of noise the nub
makes as it so
feverishly ekes
out this last
line, tickling
the parchment;
something only
the author, intimate
as they were with
When the words do
not resolve, but clank and die next to
each other.
—Cedar Sigo
And here I am –
no, there he is.
Here we are on
page one, and
we’re making
noises with our
pencils, our mark
ers, our writing
utensils. And what
utility (tonight’s
guest is gleaming
and looks very out-
of-place on Jimmy
Kimmel)! In design
er jewelry. Which
brings me to text.
Texting is design
(textuality). This
I believe. Hold on
to me for just a mo
ment, if you will. I’m
not talking about fing
ering a phone – not
that sort of texting
(nor am I saying I’m
not young enough to
be well-versed; or
too old to get quite
a bit of what there
is to get about meth
ods of communication).
There’s a lot of things
that I’m not saying,
here – about pecking
at little buttons-not-
buttons that are,
in fact, teeny-tiny,
ok, small – rect
angles we all too
often think of meta
phorically as hearts,
as heart-shaped
hearts, whether
many of them,
row after row,
a multitude,
that is, or
maybe just
two, maybe
just one, which,
if you’ve been
around perhaps
as long as I have
you might make like
punching out “less
than” “three,” which
would, in fact, and
tautologically, be,
for example, two,
which, sadly, could
just as easily be
one, or – and who
cares if, right? –
could be less than
zero (whose zero-
headed thoughts
go now to Robert
Downey Junior and
the windmills to and
from Palm Springs) –
that is, less than or
equal to zero. No,
no. I mean texting:
the physical act of
drawing words, let
ter by letter upon a
page, let’s say. The
act of writing. Which
I do now: I write a
green sentence across
this page (before it is
sprawled across a
screen, like so).
A page from a
book that I stole
from a sidewalk
some four or five
years ago. Or per
haps I took it from
the shelter’s library
(which was a tall,
chewed-up looking
stained bookshelf
that stood in the
breakroom of said
shelter, the place I
called home for a
year and a half)
(The shelter; that
“library.”). What
home has a break
room? could be the
beginning of a droll
joke – another line
or two that now live
in a notebook begun
(by all the evidence
I have rather effort
lessly gathered) as
somebody’s diary,
as someone else’s
private book, its
first few pages
still mostly filled
with what appears
to be the scrawled
thoughts and desires
of an individual who
never intended to
part ways with these
pages, unless by some
accidental chance it
were to be found by
one particular person
(and only her; she,
alone, might find
this book lying so
forlorn upon the
sidewalk, as it is,
will be, was, in the
middle of this city
a hush falls upon).
The author finishes
a third page of scrib
bled thoughts, a hush
having fallen upon
the city, the side
walk, the notebook,
its pages, the author
of what appears on
pages one through
three, and then a
bunch of pigeons
who must’ve been
the rooftop of the
building propping up the
author’s very back; and
what pigeons, this bunch,
flapping their wings
all messily, moving
from this roof to
the rooftop of
the building
just across the
street from a
biographer:
author of this
love letter.
These
pigeons make
a lot of noise for
a small amount
of time, the a
mount of time
it takes for all
of them to move
from one rooftop
to an almost iden
tical rooftop directly
across Mission Street.
“Carrier pigeons,”
the artist writes
near the bottom
of the third page
of the newish note
book as the hush
that had enveloped
the city moments
before is interrupted
by the birds’ return,
the last two words
written in furious
scritches and
scratches in
pencil, so
that when
the latest hush
begins to blanket
the day, the blips
of noise the nub
makes as it so
feverishly ekes
out this last
line, tickling
the parchment;
something only
the author, intimate
as they were with
the notebook’s paper,
does. Until. The
sound of a train?
Begins to crescendo.
A chugging loco
motive that makes
a grand entrance into
the big city, as if it were
a star in some Technicolor
Western, so that we can
now think of each line
scribbled across this
page as a has been,
or the horizon as it
is flooded with
charcoal-colored
smoke that, as
the train chugs
ever closer,
gets blown,
thick black
puffs of
smoke
that
spew
gloriously
from the
choo-choo
chugging
train’s swiftly
approaching
(nearer, ever
nearer) front-
end engine.
does. Until. The
sound of a train?
Begins to crescendo.
A chugging loco
motive that makes
a grand entrance into
the big city, as if it were
a star in some Technicolor
Western, so that we can
now think of each line
scribbled across this
page as a has been,
or the horizon as it
is flooded with
charcoal-colored
smoke that, as
the train chugs
ever closer,
gets blown,
thick black
puffs of
smoke
that
spew
gloriously
from the
choo-choo
chugging
train’s swiftly
approaching
(nearer, ever
nearer) front-
end engine.
