“To analyze is to renounce yourself
One can reason only in a circle
One sees only what one wants to see
Birth solves nothing” —Nicanor Parra
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Claudia’s essay in this issue
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Email Claudia
Her website
Claudia K. Grinnell
Deferment
It heightens the passion, which we know, of course,
As suffering, and not just at Easter or similarly convenient
Dates. No, what we don’t yet know, say, do, eat, swallow,
Step on or over, or lay bare—all that post-poned living—
Tiptoes behind us. The dream goes something like this:
You bring the whip and invent god to punish you
For bringing it. The whip really has no say in any of this
And at some point even made the mistake of bringing up
Eve, but that’s all about apples, of course. The thing is
The dream. It keeps haunting you. Sometimes, right before
You finally fall asleep, you set the scene differently.
You take away the garden, the trees, anything that slithers.
You are in an empty, colorless room. No sounds. You have
A hard time imagining this. The room itself bothers you.
You try various shapes: square rooms, round rooms,
Triangular rooms. You wish you had paid more attention
To geometry. You flog yourself with the whip and you begin
To enjoy the sensation of leather against your skin
And you wonder what it would be like to nail yourself to something.
