Goofing Off

 

I am writing these words with a knife.—Bhanu Kapil

When the hand deviates from the task it is set to, touching for money, hand to hand, orders

passed from hand to paper to brain and out another hand again. When the brain receives from

the paper and refuses the order and the hand writes something else instead, something you

don’t want to hear. The click the pen made before the ink came out and the click of the door

when it opens cover the sound of the paper folding. The paper hides in a uniform pocket. The

ink smearing the fingers is a contraband gift from the words folded in between the lines. When

the eyes of the brain look up to the footsteps outside the door there are guilty, suspicious

glances. When the hand grips the pen again, when passwords are re-entered into sleeping

snake nests of code and foggy ether, when the face of the brain looks intent, busy. When the

words still fall out of the brain onto the paper from that hand that ignores the order. When the

ears of the brain hear the paper rip.

 
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Jessica Halsey was born in Arkansas and lives in the marshlands of the American South writing poetry and odd fiction. She earned an MFA in Creative Writing from Goddard College and a BA in Sociology from Randolph College. She was nominated for the Pushcart Prize in 2011. She has self published two poetry collections and one science fiction novella about trying to escape financial ruin. She has several other projects in the works and a day job where she pokes people with needles.

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