Judson Church 1963

implacable in a chair

she sits in the only way she knows how
completely

then much later
a turn
or rather a push
into a place she looked headed

the sound of a clap hits everyone
a door is opened and remains so

and now
+++++++++++++++++++++she’s leaning forward
++++++++++++++towards the floor

her legs mark another space

she has moved

+++++++the whole body has moved

shunting the body in this manner is difficult to do
or even to think about doing

it is strange
that this should not be stranger than it is

the chair you sit in is not made for this
as the day stretches into one hell of a long night
but you let go or don’t hold on

there is someone else too
another person is moving more lightly more quickly
and maybe more wrongly

is this a duet
+++++++or two solos

you can follow either or neither

he is all over the floor
covering and uncovering more
space revealing more area
though is perhaps but a marker
(holder) or something she is dreaming
+++++++perhaps it’s he dreaming her
or us them or they us

*

and now
+++++++an hour or more later
her feet
have found the floor

she hunches forward and is out
of the picture

her legs are gone
her head gone

silhouettes
as if this could be an ending

Thomas Devaney is the author of The Picture That Remains (The Print Center, Philadelphia, 2014), A Series of Small Boxes (Fish Drum, 2007), The American Pragmatist Fell in Love (Banshee Press, 1999), and the nonfiction Letters to Ernesto Neto (Germ Folios, 2005). Devaney is the editor of ONandOnScreen, and he teaches at Haverford College.