Scan.
Is the black an atmosphere, or mud-flats, or fluid?
White body? The white
appears intact inside of the sound
of itself,
a heart is beating loosed
within pale overarchings,
—a bud yearning to spring open
whatever lock restrains
so that what was a chamber of stillness
breaks to be released,
reaches.
Is it weightless?
Aware of its own weightlessness?
I am anxious of the unknown, for it,
its diaphragm rises and falls and rises in
‘practise breaths’
the Midwife says, as she measures and listens
—and we all listen
to blood’s flow through arteries and veins.
This is the cord in section,
a section through the cord.
Why then does this machine not show it
reaching out and running like a cable should
and plugging in shocking us deep beneath our skin.
This is the landscape of the nose, the open
mouth. I remember
hearing memory begins
when words are used for things.
Alan John Stubbs.
