Sarah Marclay
Irony Is the New Black
Outside, they’re planting trees: the tick, tick of a tool on soil, a
trowel hitting rock. Loam left on the sidewalk in small clumps
of black, and now, much later, in the larger black of night, the
woman next door is moaning—tick, tick of tool on soil—and
moaning shifts the color of the hour, pulling at the thimble of
skin. Now all black, all loam resettles, restlessly though, waiting
for another wave of sound, as it escalates and scales—the slap,
slap of bodies on the other side of the door, loud and urgent
enough to enter the kitchen with their sound, the hallway, living
room, the staircase splitting its way down the walls that separate
these rooms from those, and a cry comes up again, and
vanishes; then real crying, the sound of tears, then black—and
not the new black, but the old I want to wear: color of sky
before stars, before light, under the hollow laughter, under the
wince that is the modern face, that night, prior to the sepulcher
of bleached light or some prior dawn rehearsing for Rothko,
lighting its background of death trees, proper handshakes,
sticks. Beyond that light is the old black. And I want to go
back.
Gun Powder on Paper
And where are we now? Remembering how fine it all is, how
remote from something that can kill, as, in a moment, one distraction
and the glass plate doesn’t make it, as we had intended,
to the credenza, and we’re surprised by the shattering sound
when we let go, the mess of shards on the floor. It’s over. Ready
for dustpan and broom and so little regret—something to
clean. A reason to get on our knees, to attend to the wood
below our feet. Something coheres. And now there’s a pattern.
Now there’s a past.