Linda M. Walker

Circumscribe

What do you do you ask. I do the least mostly I reply and sit in the sun on my patch of earth and speak too. “Speaking is the last chance remaining for us, speaking is our chance.”(1) Someone brings hot black coffee. Anyway I can tell you’re a perfect shape. Anyway puts a strange slant on life. Anyway I am leaving for instance. And then a slanted leaving happens. Anyway nothing should be drawn to the surface on my behalf or in my name. Of course there’s violence and lying and the tap tap tap of the woman at the window. A dream dreams you walking back on your own. Writing betrays the dream. And in disgust she gave up and read. Then she packed and moved south. Someone should say something about her before she dies. Describing her would be a start. I could say something. She’s trouble though. A dream dreams you walking back on your own. ““I asked you to come …” He stops [for] an instant: “Do you remember how things happened?” … “I remember it very well.” “Ah, good. I was not very sure, finally, of having initiated the conversation myself.””(2) I don’t hear from her. There was always a mishap. Perhaps she’s dead. I should be a little more delicate. A dream dreams you walking back on your own. No point asking me about her. She didn’t circumscribe herself to me. She didn’t circumscribe herself to me, I think to myself. “A little later, and without raising his head, he asks: “What were we saying?” This time he appears wide awake.”(3)

Notes

1.         2.         3.

Maurice Blanchot, The Infinite Conversation, trans. Susan Hanson, University of Minnesota Press, Minneapolis, 1993, p. xvii ibid., p. xv ibid., p. xiv

Linda M Walker is a writer, artist and independent curator. She used to live in Adelaide, now she lives in Mount Gambier.
 
 
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