Scott Garson

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Contain

By Scott Garson

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.

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