Wheezing, I pray to the half yellow.

During such communions, always, the Castle invades the sight of my lesser seeing right eye. Its sturdy lifeless stone unfeeling of the harsh winds, weathering over centuries, not mere minutes like this fucking dry skin. Taunting me.

I offer my tongue to seemingly no response, though I know she can hear me. She must be able to hear me by now. Even if only pained animal wailing. The muscle spits in the weak fire of plastic refuse, pretending towards the hope that such flame will guide me back next time. Wisps of glittering steam rise meek.

My body plummets to the ground with annoyance.

~

Once I was a sailor on a slave ship crossing the Indoatlantic Corridor on a repurposed US military freighter. It was still some years before the new rituals (le Principe Nouveau) found traction in mainstream channels, so when a crew mate whittled down a femur from expired cargo to a long, fine needle, I was taken aback by the serene motion of her slipping it into her corner eye, deep until I heard the scrape of bone on bone.

The roof of her ego, she said, was marked by generations of study, every word for every plant shone like constellations if she rolled her eyes back far enough. She would recite to us anecdotes written by foremothers, amended by her daughter’s hand as we lay under the rain canopy, the ship slowly rocking us as it lumbered through the Ahaggar Archipelago.

Some days before we reached Malaysia she died of scurvy.

I assumed her to have been more notable, but haven’t heard of her since. When many larger churches and corporations began to endorse the practices she performed, I tried to trace the roots to no avail. Much of it seemed scrubbed of its folk roots, as such things normally go.

~

Now, I reside back in the Australia Pacifics, near where I first grew up under the old moon, some hours north of Dry Meanjin in the Upper Dividing Archipelago. The small commune I found myself in mostly grows tea and citrus to trade with the convoys from the Toowoomba Citadels.

I’ve been building antennas out of scrap metal to see what signals I can pick up from across the basin. Rumours are always circling that song from the Levant can be caught when enough boosters and proxies line up just right, but nothing of the sorts has graced me so far. Mostly, I end up listening to dub reggae being broadcast out of Darwin. Some shows play the classics which is always a treat, but much of the airtime is taken up by shitkicker teenagers who just built their first delay, pulling cones and improvising on air.

It’s a warm night and the rings glow a pearly bronze as the sun finishes making its rounds for the day.

~

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