Kevin McIlvoy
Abraham Dear Abraham I miss you Abraham I see Kudzu Serrucho and I miss you whenever I'm not the people in my dreams I start to think you're the people in my dreams
Kudzu pulls off the saw's yellow and red cardboard sleeve – sometimes you're the people in my dreams when I really am
the people in my dreams your white cane stirring the floor Kudzu says "Vamos por ella" – "Let's go for it" is what it means and he leads me into the neighborhood a block east of Mr. P's Hardware – Are you still blind Abraham? – you know what I mean
Abraham you know what I mean you could see how Kudzu got the name the trees in the neighborhood the bushes and garden plants the dog-runs and doghouses the legs of real slow dogs the garages and fences the satellite dishes kudzu-kudzu-kudzu he doesn't hold the saw at his side the kudzu is not transition-averse like me it hyphenates itself
on the Parkway bridges on the carwash hoses his chest is where he holds it Lifetime Warranty his small fingers don't fit the handle fairly hard he spits on the blade stares
takes a whiff of the steel – I can't help feeling it's a tiny world this green grave this hardware store of hardware stories in which a stranger utter stranger would have the same lung problems I do – same bad-smelling sputum for which – I ask him "You take pills?" – "Four" he says – for which I take pills four pills every day
"For what good?" he asks in a dream Spanish loogie that has the word comezon in it – laughs – I wouldn't know that word comezon at all if I didn't get the exact same side effect the itching he wipes the saw blade off against his pants – his face is pissed and beneficent under the surface are white-hot green slender vines
and slight stems of green lightning – I'm thinking of this woman Mrs. Wiggins – this was on the Google News – the woman who took a photo that made cloud physicists name a new cloud category Abraham remember when I used to read the newspaper to you? this Kindle thing will read it to you now if there's no one to do that this Kindle thing has two Text-to-Speech readers they call them T2Ss
I brought it up – new cloud category - two voices male and female Tina Turner & The Boss stalking the neighborhood with Kudzu – making conversation – "Brand new cloud category" I said – I added "I have two sons" Kindle doesn't tell you anything about the T2Ss I researched it Tina Bruce He said "Look at them" and pointed to the row of black plastic mailboxes on wood posts
many many of them "Sons too" he loogied
that was a fine thing – his loogySpanish – that we both had sons two he looked into the blade – held it in front of me so I could look
these modern mailboxes are a box and a long plastic sleeve that fits over the post and is fixed to it with 12 woodscrews – to cut one down you have to do some unscrewing or you have to saw through the plastic you haven't seen a loogie have you? have you touched one? when will we speak of it Abraham? when I took the job as The Silence I had the opportunity
to go mad and die
I took the opportunity and then I lost the job and then they hired The New Silence and I had the opportunity to move to North Carolina
and go mad and die
and I took the opportunity I can't promise that I'm ever going to shut up about it
we had no screwdriver a wind was picking up and he and I had no screwdriver Abraham you have an email address Abraham but you're still blind as a tadpole Abraham Abraham the wind made me think of how a page of newspaper turns by itself if you look at it hard and long on a windy day after you've gone almost forever without sleeping so someone Abraham someone sighted or less blind than you is reading this to you hello Reader hello Reader I was a father and had two two who loved me
& I was Abraham's reader I was his T2S We sawed right through the plastic and Kudzu sawed down the sturdy mailboxes of Mr. Martin and The Rorty Family on the saw sleeve it said the teeth were "induction hardened" a hallucinatory green banner flies where Kudzu's head should be they stay sharp longer Abraham? Abraham it's true they stay sharper if they're hardened by induction and my theory – I told you -- I've been sleepless now for 56 years and you're the one who said that's like 106 – my latest theory is that the green banner is what my brain makes where it would have made a dream
Kudzu's head is transparent liquid diamond green the wind makes it whip and
snap the lapping tongues inside his face thrash four pills per day expensive I lay down each mailbox's head and body itching itching but not scratching they say my sons say they can't ever think of me the same way again
when he hacks up a few lung-flowers I hack up some too a vase of some kind would be nice
that would be nice about now because you want the last things to last it's not a tunnel people will tell you that the Reader – not a real human – might have read that to you I might have but Abraham Abraham at the end there is a second-to-the-last thing and there is a last thing
the second-to-the-last thing is a turning or a reaching a bending down it's not white-lit not glorious not much when about 56 to 106 years of no-sleep have passed
you hear "Let's go for it – let's go for it – vamos por ella"
& the last thing is a simple sawing motion 8-point 20-inch short cut you lower the flag and close the mail mouth it's not what you thought – not a tunnel or tube white-lit and your whole life draining down if you are Abraham Abraham if you are being read to who in hell is reading to you?
if I could like I used to I'd read you a first article and then all the way
through all 296,111 related articles on Mrs. Wiggins' one photo altocumulus undulatus asperatus she said it was like no cloud she'd ever seen.