There Is No Year - Blake Butler [69]
And now this moment never happened
and this went on for quite some time
ANSWER
All the son could see, where he was, was milk and mirrors, knives.
The room was very gone. Beginning. The son turned inside him, on.
Then the son could see a color, then another color. Then a hole.
BOX OF BOXES
In the house again, beside the box, the father felt him, in his body, open up his ageless mouth—a mouth of skin and text and warm rain—and though still now in the room there with the box still words would not come out, and there from his father body came another shape instead, a glowing, flowing fountain through his center—a small ream of creamy water which, against his teeth and tongue, became another box,
a blackened nodule
in his mouth hole,
small as a bird’s
egg, or a bulb: o
And in the room there the father could see absolutely nothing but the sides and faces of the ejection, the new shape, each side there in the house there pouring brightly, and there against his skin the box began to spin,
giving off
an awfulllllllllllllllllll
stuttereddddd
sounddddddd
With each instance of the sound, the box blew even more light, glowed as if its heat would bend it in
and from the seam of what the box was it made another, spitting more boxes from its shrieking o o o o o
another box there: o
and another: o
boxes falling out of boxes, boxes of boxes, boxes, glow on glow on glow—the mother somewhere underneath it—as in spiral, as in stun—boxes spitting up more boxes to make more boxes, blackened gifts
and as each box hit the air inside the house the house would shake and ripple, there and there, and there—
shook like singing through blown speakers
rippled like clear light peeled off of some uncertain sky
as each box fell, sent in its order, to shriek and shake upon the ground, the room quickly became filled in with the boxes—the more there were the quicker made—each box giving its own and from therein more and more, each of a light and sent in writhing, still unopened, mega-rubbed—
until box by box
by box by box
the room was so bright
and the father, any of him, at the windows
could not breathe
or sink or say or
see
WHERE AM I WHERE HAVE I BEEN WHERE ARE YOU
& now the house was full of boxes houses
& now the air around the house was full as well, swarmed & gathered at its walls & ceilings, a silent sound a hall
& now in the sky above the house of boxes light was rising
& resizing
& now the father, son & mother at once in time together breathed—& in the same way they had grew out of some center
to the center they returned
THERE THERE
The son appeared inside the house before the father. The father had begun to rub his forearms soft together, creating further song. The father stood against the wall, the son against him. The son said something to the father and the father did not reply. The father exhaled through his mouth. The father was looking through the room at where the son was but the father could not see the son. The father said something aloud.
Against the wall inside the next room, the mother cocked her head. She had to cup her lips to keep from laughing.
Her neck was sore. She had an awful twitch. Above the mother’s head there was a window.
Through the window you could see into the backyard, where the light was gushed and bronzing. The yard had grown. The light was null. The swimming pool had overflowed. Black algae water sloshed the grass and tore the sod up. The yard could moan a little.
The copy father and the copy mother, in the deep parts, floated up and down and up.
PART FOUR
INTERVIEWER: Do you think there will be a Poltergeist III?
HEATHER O’ROURKE: There should