Pelt

Abstract

He should still be in the world. But if I say that, it means I’ve failed to embrace the comforts of philosophy. Its rational root-lore twines among the dead, loosening our ties to what’s no longer living. But I can’t reach deeply in the earth that way. I’m nursing my feelings, pulling a coarse pelt close around my shoulders. The lake is a different color from yesterday, its green-gray haze now smoothed as a mirror. And two rafts float and wobble in the distance. One of the rowers huddles in upon himself. Are the two men close enough to speak to one another? Are they even men? A ripple thickens my measure of the distant air. But when the huddled figure unspools his body, the space between the rowers closes like an outstretched hand. They’re moving as one animal, gliding with temporary purpose across beauty, as if to leave the spirit