Many years ago in the province of L— there was a time of sudden and general bliss, and why do I say? Because now is not such a time. Because now we are clearly as far from that time as we are from the province of L—, wherever that is. So your tension—follow me here—is as follows: then vs. now. Then vs. restrooms: scented petroleum products under the urine stream. Then vs. hangnails. Then vs. boredom and falseness and gradual animal death. Are you still reading? I offer this memory, which, like all others, is totally made up: low hills with a cover of grass and weeds. Thistle and ratty blue chicory. Dayflower, milkweed, Queen Anne’s lace. These are hills like the sky, which is puzzled with see-through cloud, in their feigning of ultimate spin. It is like: you whirl. You fly with the planet in space. You do this. And you are unafraid but maybe, briefly, untethered enough to tether the sky in fancy. Look, a big melon. Two halves of a sinking ship. Can you see it? You love to contain things. This is you. The holder of the jar. The hearer of the voice.

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Scott Garson‘s first collection of stories–IS THAT YOU, JOHN WAYNE?–will be out this spring from Queen’s Ferry Press.