After Henry Green
This piece was first published in Quarto’s 2021 Spring Print Edition.
Illustration by Mita Sharma
I.
noun.
From the Latin, columba
meaning “dove”
In Chinese, naguta
“a pagoda-of-bones”
this dovecote
with its | lattice-work of shelves |
pockmarked by urns
one recalls:
the dome of the Pantheon
Borges and his infinite library
in its sheltering arms
porous, permeating, perforated
like skin under a microscope
or a chestnut
its dark, brawny husk
guarding the tender flesh
there’s a word in Chinese
yiwu (遺物): “leftover"
something discarded & remaindered
which we
embalm with associations
maunder with meanings
these few, worthless things
the deceased
have forgotten
left behind:
[too worn shoes,
a dozen, burnished coins
a pair of cracked
spectacles]
if I have anything like Religion
it might be
Etymology
for I enjoy nothing more
than the opening up of words
dismantling
their little boxes
and, like a well
peering down
into them.
II.
In this
budding grove I sit
on a mossy, lover’s bench
under an aged sycamore
on some decomposing, Irish estate
amid cornflowers
my presence disrupts
a tendentious stillness
With one careless movement
I startle them
their cries echo
from so many
small places
suddenly,
a gust of wind lifts
the ground swells
a shroud of white,
rippling, brilliant
momentarily blots the sun
Thomas Mar Wee (they/them) is a writer, poet, and editor based in New York and a senior studying English and Comparative Literature at Columbia University. A writer of poetry, fiction, and mixed-media work, their work seeks to explore liminality in literary forms and the ambiguities they inhabit as a mixed-race, genderqueer person. They are currently at work on a short story collection and a novel.