0

Sand was a gourd fanatic
and she played
                  a glass
          marimba.

          1

          Harry Soot loved to listen. 

0

When Sand shook,
          a green ribbon of rainsound 
rose and fell in the air,

          and when she let her mallet
fall, the palest of violets, a screen of violet
          silver unscrolled.

          1

          Soot ground his keys 
               in his pocket, 
defacing his MetroCard.

0

Should Sand sing, 

          1

          Harry felt himself leaning over a piano 
               loosening his tie. As he reached out 
          his hand, it was as if the inside of seventeen 
          stretched balloons expanded past ivory, 
          past gray, past transparence. A single spot, 
          hung from the chrome scaffolding, bore 
               down 
          on the hoof of his nail.

0

Sand had a wardrobe 
made of twirlies. 

          1

          Harry Soot 
          tried to find a center. Beneath or beyond. 
          A point to yield or resist. 
          Liquefaction of furbelows. 
          Buglebead ballast. Contour cups 
                of constructed silk. 
          A skein that flung itself into a cusp of droplets. 

1

Harry Soot was a handsome man, 
woody and gaunt. 
A blue-eyed boy. 

          0

          Sand well Sand was hard to say. 
          Some saw horns. Some saw 
               slidebars. All 
          saw pointers 
               but acknowledged them diversions. 
          A dragon, perhaps. 

                              Or a dragon 
               meditation? 

0

Sand panned speed. Languid was she. Oh 
          seeming fast, fine foil for 
de…lay, lo, slow. Some slipp…age, she…

          1

          He, Harry, hurried, harried host. 

0

Sand’s similarity to scarabs? 
Or a rosa dolorosa, every petal 
thorned? Or swallows up close. 
"The tail is forked and as elegant 
as a trout’s, but more attenuated, 
just short of baroque," says the 
naturist. I quote. 

          1

          Harry succinct long gone 
          to the lake with his tackle 
          looking for lily berries, 
          looking for blue pearls. Water 
          holds his eyes. A silver weir. 

0

Sand incessantly beckoning. Sandpipers 
scurry to erase the loss of their faint 
print at the foaming margin. 

          1

          Watch Harry put a toe in.

1

Harry Soot, 
unclear, of course, about fire. 
          How original, originating, 
it really was– 
          Forests aflame. Resinous clubs. 
In the dark paneled reading room, 
a green shade. 

          0

          Sand, a cat’s cradle fan and economic. 
          Her shave and a haircut, fifteen cents; 
          her Oceania nodes of knot 
               remembered navigation; 
          her numerous fingers interlaced 
          with gloves–made of holes–slipped 
          successfully over; 
               her mediumistic con 
          in the dark apparatus, all one, all 
          the same nano-rope. This point 
          escaped Harry. Harry preferred Ouija 
          wavering words, reassured 
          by Ouija jerk. 

1

Harry is no fool. Harry Soot is shrewd. 
Harry has allergies and moods. 
Harry lies–he can’t 
                         help it. 
Harry has structure–genes and grammar. 
Harry is a detective, but he can’t find 
          an answer. Harry is violent 
and violently quiet; 

          01000011 

          Sand is sand. 

0

Sand insinuated herself. ZaumZoom in, 
she has gone ahead. ZoomTzim out, 
     she is not behind. To hear, 
in her gourd, her mallet-fall, a relation to 
     emptiness, finest gauze, so finely 
          woven even the strands 
               appear to disappear. 

          1

          Harry Soot believes he is watching. 
          Harry thinks he is in Times Square. 
          He is. She is not. 

0

Twirly languid blue-eyed blue pearls clearly not
          Sand. 
Down on the fourth harmonic she simply singly
          for a second 
stood, so symmetric, second subsequent swiftly 
               sliding side-
riding slamjamming shivering switching– 

          1

          Soot calls it "searching."

0

Sand sings Nessun dorma long summer 
afternoons in the music room. Heavy red 
curtains, gilded chairs, portraits of dead 
children. Sand in a window seat 
looking out on roses; 

          1

          Harry Soot in a seersucker suit 
          at the far door, arms 
          raised in triumph: 
          his play, his score.

0

Sand seeks the scent 
               of lemon viburnum, 
murmuring purple 
of the ringneck doves’ soft 
gurgle as they walk on the wall 
and their syllables spill over and 
               fall 
          down a column 
          of slowness. 
Midnight blue of Krishna’s

          1

          shoes. Harry finishes up. 

0

Sometimes Sand doesn’t come. Fatally 
     blocked. 
Splurt of sign signage red/blue blood 
on the grisly snow. Minutes of arc off. 

          1

          Harry swims in adrenalin. 

0

Sand might be getting restless. 
How does Sand feel about insects 
as companions? Does she take 
her cue from the alkaloid plants? 
What seems to Soot revenge may 
seem to her survival. Or 
is she incapable of refusal?

          1

          Soot loves Sand. Every tree, 
          every wall, a target inscription, pierced 
          by Tell’s weapon. Turn me on, 
          the swooshing sound Soot hears Sand 
          murmur. 

0

Hold me down, Sand prays, to dusk & 
musk, purple black sheathed with frost, 
the Concord grape of Krishna’s shoes 
           with golden tips and toes 
and soles. The stars are variable sprays, 
                golden geometric rays 
of twisted silk. Crimson lining unfolding. 
Achtung! Loose lips. Beware. 

          1

          Here comes Soot. 
0
 
Sand resounds as long as a whale song 
passed along and around the waters 
of the world. Like a motherchild pod, she/they 
both threatened and succored by the 
coasts. Alone in the bay, rolling over and 
back beneath the moon, as

          1

          Harry and his cohort heave 
          into view, traveling in a pack, 
          driving them aground. 

0

A housedress of dotted Swiss with a lace 
collar. A curling iron, to refresh 
marcelled hair. Account books with black, 
placeholder ribbons. Linoleum 
made to look like a brick floor. Sand 
could be retro. 

          1

          Soot in tow. 

0

Sand’s relation to dreams bears 
repeating. Was it mentioned? 

          1

          Not necessarily Harry’s.

0

As albino cave bats who let go 
of coloration, but develop keener 
sensors, Sand. 

          1

          Soot, who seeks to catch a falling star 
          in the monitoring 
          cave, evolves into colorblind. 

1

Harry Soot is that kind of guy. Despite 
his lust for lime, despite a savvy sense 
of what goes down around such light, Harry 
Soot is attached to his memory lines, 
crow’s feet crinkle, scar arroyos, worry 
furrows, wry sag, time written in skin, 
in bone, in blood. Chemical peels do not 
appeal to him. Nor implant chips (wait until 
he gets sick!). 

          01010011 

          Sand’s unbelievable memory
          learned, of course, 
          not lived. 
0

Biocompatible glass? 
               Sand looks askance. 
Sand an infinite receiver–
infinitely flexible. Beyond 
               flex in fact, an infinite 
deceiver: Proteus at home. 

          1

          Siren! Circe! screams Soot.

0

Golda called Moshe that Arab. 
Golda, schoolteacher, thought 
words 
          warded off. 
Is Golda Sand? 
 
          1

          Is Moshe Soot? 
          Is Jerusalem a mass of human names…

0

Is Sand (a wafer/chip good as) Gold? 

          1

          Is Soot…meat? 

0

Sand’s never the sameness fleeter than 
anything Soot could get a hand, a handle, 
on. Flickery swift. And yet. One finger 
brings her crashing down. Hump Dump. 

          1

          Together again–so fast it made Soot 
          swoon. An arcade thrill. Cheaper than 
          medical or bootleg. Purer, too, potent 
          and hygienic. Claustrophobic–no 
          establishing shot. Unusually 
          cold–most color blocked her light. 

1

Harry Soot from time to time in the market for swoon. 
          Perhaps ever more often. In his dream, 
just a year or two ago, he remembered edge, it being
          summoned. People who forget the art 
of navigation come to believe the island has sunken; 

          0

          Sand’s smile at this juncture, Mona Lisan.

1

Harry Soot’s grandmama, Muck Raker Ida Tar…. 
What a falling off there. 

          111111111 

          Sand’s gramp, grep, Pythagoras. 
               She done him proud. It sims. 

1

Tangy Soot. Tang-I-Bull Soot. 

          0

     Trua-vir Sand. Liv-a-Tru Sand. 
     Physics: The Movie. R.I.P., 
     crown assays in a bathtub, 
     or Galileo trekking to the far side 
     of the valley to touch that blue 
     boulder on the ridge. 
     And would this prove he saw 
     mountains on the moon in any case, 
     Sand asks. 

0
Sand, as I said, a marimba player; 

          1

     Oozy Soot, Uzi Soot, born to swim, 
     born to dance, to paint his face, to lay 
     flowers by the dead. Soot will say, 
     on any given day, born to fly, 
     born to rise–born to escape.

0

Sand’s whimsy and scarcity/value? Sand 
paints daffodils on the deck of an aircraft 
carrier, caps the age of the unknown 
                    universe. 

          1

          Soot is running out of numbers–not 
          populace. Lively virus.

0

If a silly con were all Sand were. 

          1

          If an ashy trash were all of Soot. 

0

Sand religiously stops. And starts the next thing. 

          1

          Bluesy Soot can’t conclude.