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Charles Ries |
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ANTI-GRAVITY MAN He tried to fill the hole - find the center of what fell out of him fifteen minutes before midnight on the day he was born. It was his benign tumor. A sickness that wouldn't kill him. At night, before sleep entered his room, before twilight clouds brushed his eyes closed, he'd reach inside and wonder why he was made this way. A mutation with an unnatural lightness of being. His condition went undetected except when the wind blew through him, causing his shirt to billow like a sail, and a high-pitched whistle to emit from within him. A sound only a dog's ears could detect. To himself, he was invisible: tissue paper thin, weightless and lacking substance. Most days he felt he wasn't even standing on earth. But he wanted to. He theorized that a heart must hold the universe and weigh ten thousand pounds. It is a heart that keeps feet on the floor. Nothing mattered to this untethered, floating pilgrim but finding a cure for his gaping hole. A yearning he did not acknowledge until the day he became firmly rooted in her. I LOVE Your grilled cheese sandwiches under the full March moon, as Jupiter draws near and we witness its unblinking eye hovering above the horizon at early dusk. The way your lip is slightly twisted upward at one corner making your mouth look like an irregular right triangle. Your explanation for washing your bed sheets three times a week, "dust mites." Your mantric complaint about how hard it is to dress well at 20 below zero in the midst of a blizzard. Yet refusing to compromise for the sake of warmth instead sludging, steadfast, like an Armani foot soldier through road salt, snow drifts and sleet. Saying, "some things will not be compromised!" Your method of slowly moving, methodically passing through the house...dusting, resetting souvenirs, just so. You, the feng shui master of knickknacks and fashion magazines, creating a perfect order in the universe of our life. |