chapter 25

Nora Claire Miller

hatred is very ordinary. the light
on the porch of the new apartment
is too gray. there is no way to fix
this except to get different light. in
general, things that have stripes
tend to be good. in general, blue
houses tend not to be content.
if you put on a blouse be sure to
overtake it. hatred is very funny.
you wear your clothes inside out
for a while. you get heavy with the
smell of sheep and dead flowers,
or the wayside wind, or molecules.
anyway, like I told Kate on the phone,
there isn’t any real way to get anger
to count these days. it seems like
in three or four ways, things just keep on
gluing past it. and I guess there would
be no place left to go, except going is sub zero
and not counting. to get to the dial pad you
have to bounce off tables and come
and go with lines. to get by on earth
you really have to hate it. to get started you
just have to get general, be good,
be blue, be not impertinent, be vernal
gray in a bucket of cereal, be whimsy,
be grateful, be single-handed, be clod,
be ominous like a see-thru violet