Madelaine Caritas Longman: white infinity net
white infinity net
Snow touching snow. Petal and rhizome,
asterisk, osteocyte. Splitcell and starry
matrix of bone
a sharp pain behind my left eye insomnia prickles
bright as ice cream body out of bed
to paint
Once I awoke I could not walk, talk,
the single blanket
read, write drips its pattern
the river's white stones like milk across the floor
I got on my cardio glider
I could not recall any details of my life frost climbs the broken window
onto a hand
monochrome net
American emptiness
space extending all directions
it gripped me. and it released me. and it gripped me.
O'Keefe's cow bones
a vertigo of open sky
and released me. no longer the choreographer of my life
the crinkle of light on water decided I might
become a farmer
my consciousness shifted and paint on the side
it was beautiful there
by the underlying surfaces
my unrecognizable hands
to some esoteric space, witnessing myself
fetal ball in an ambulance
two planes crossing "We do not treat illnesses like yours
at Bellevue"
the dialogue inside white sound of water
either the doctors
would rescue my body
texture of paint or this was a moment
striking the tub of transition
canvas visible beneath
the myelin pollen and fractal
mycelium threading outward to materialize rapture
tens of thousands of arcs
crawling off the canvas
the atoms and molecules of my arm blended onto the table
with the atoms and molecules of the wall onto the floor
and my body
gathered around
could no longer define the boundaries
invisible points of gravity
microscopic lights accumulating mass
hundreds of millions of white pebbles
'What makes it even more terrifying—'
'Remarkable. Not terrifying — remarkable.'
each individually verifiable really "existed" there
the stones' white spirits
the brain stem potential
the riverbed
for death where she hid
nets of light from her family
monochrome obsession the grackles' human voices
into consciousness
the ash of paintings fell
like the ash of flowers
respect for the cells composing repetition compulsion
a human form stage or trap
tightrope, safety net
blood clots flowering water
in the fibres of language
between meaning and sound
forty-five hours dissolving
English into white
thirty-seven years into white
painting from pre-dawn I had to relearn the words
into deep night for peanut butter, for tuna fish
to describe what was happening
inside my body
enveloped
the single particle of light
I didn't know if there was anybody I was supposed to be mad at
before it was all gone
that was my life
'Are there mysteries of the brain that are better left unsolved?'
'No.'
Madelaine Caritas Longman‘s writing has appeared or is scheduled to appear in magazines including Matrix, CV2, Room, and filling Station. She lives in Montreal.
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