So: remember all that paper that was under my desk two weeks ago that I cleared out just last week?

Well, now there’ s this:

* here there be manuscripts *

I handed this over to Ani earlier this week.

I’ve been busy working on a few different projects since school let out, hermitted away at my desk, coming away excited each night, talking her ear off about this concept or that change.  It’s a terrifying stack: the soul in a ream of paper.

This week’s poem by Dorianne Laux deals with all manner of nakedness.  What stands out is how the nakedness pointed out by the poet is the nakedness that is apparent in a straightforward sense, something of the inner being exposed through the particulars of its outer being.

Sharing the stack of papers visually – and literally, with a reader – carries with it similar feelings of nakedness.

The Nakedness of Things – Dorianne Laux *

There is nothing more naked
than a cactus, its green skin
exposed, the enlarged
pores from which each
spiny hair sprouts. Nothing
so naked as a wave
lifting its frothy dress
to show off one glassy
blue thigh. The pliers
spreads its legs, sheathed
in red rubber stockings,
displays its shiny
metal crotch, cold
to the touch. A dab
of kerosene behind
an ear of glowing coal
and it splays open, twisting
in a pit, like the frayed
wilderness of sex. Nothing
naked as the rain, dragging
its fingers over
the mountain’s bare
breasts or music
undressing itself
in the air. Look,
it’s everywhere, the world
undone, naked
as the day it was born.

*

Happy nakeding!

Jose

* (originally published in Raleigh Review)