4.02.2021

the Devil is commissioned to harm, to keelhaul us with loss

He lives in the barrens, in dying neighborhoods 
and negligible countries. None with an address. 
But still the Devil finds him. Kills the wife 
or spoils the marriage. Publishes each place 
and makes it popular, makes it better, makes it 
unusable. Brings news of friends, all defeated, 
most sick or sad without reasons. Shows him 
photographs of the beautiful women in old movies 
whose luminous faces sixteen feet tall looked out 
at the boy in the dark where he grew his heart. 
Brings pictures of what they look like now. 
Says how lively they are, and brave despite their age. 
Taking away everything. For the Devil is commissioned 
to harm, to keelhaul us with loss, with knowledge 
of how all things splendid are disfigured by small 
and small. Yet he allows us to eat roast goat 
on the mountain above Parakia. Lets us stumble 
for the first time, unprepared, onto the buildings 
of Palladio in moonlight. Maybe because he is not 
good at his job. I believe he loves us against 
his will. Because of the women and how the men 
struggle to hear inside them. Because we construe 
something important from trees and locomotives, 
smell weeds on a hot July afternoon and are augmented. 
 

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