Piece for Interiors 

As in a room with the barest qualities

of room (bed, lamp, door), a lime-plastered wall 

without windows interposed the almost

cubic space, concealing what may have been 

a far corner, a narrow corridor. I heard 

two voices in conversation—something

created between them, something about 

mind as passion, passion as essential,

terrifying, a self education. I wrote

what they believed. They were beliefs I held,

understood, if not, atmospherically,

as true, but thought that in recording them 

they would become physical. The two spoke

with great urgency, in the manner 

of revelation until the moment 

the lights cut out—wall disappeared. I kept on 

with the recording despite not seeing 

the page and grew frightened of what waited

beyond the dividing wall, as cautioned 

by the speaking pair—remembrance of them 

slipping from me. I feared the maybe- 

corridor. But no beast or object 

announced itself or emerged. Perhaps 

it was the word “corridor” itself—its vast gray

light—under which I was so paralyzed. 

“Parlysis.” “Terror.” Such are effects 

of believing. In darkness I scanned 

the fixture, twisted the turn switch,

followed the cord with my fingers 

to the outlet in the lime-plastered wall,

but I couldn’t get back to them. 

Even when the lights came on. I couldn’t

get back to them. Not even in my notes, 

which recorded nothing, described instead 

a grid of gray parallel lines 

intersecting at clear, defined points.

Some assumed the qualities of figures. Others

receded into space, illegible, fruitless.