(at the behest of Miramax, the director shoots an alternate ending expressly for
American audiences, thereby acquiescing to a marginally profitable illusion of
closure for those who would otherwise, it is inveighed, reject the film’s central
disjunction)
default not to a string halved
by force of finger possessed
in chironomy’s leap
for,
when viewed through a convex lens,
fists of earth from undisclosed aboves
neither elaborate nor contain the ceremony
but midwife and scatter the body
over two tongues in one singing mouth
NORA, THERE ARE NO CURRENT STATISTICS
I heard about your cousin’s niece who lost an ear and I think an arm or hand, likely
the one (arm or hand) with which she was holding her phone at the time.
The person who told me was also once struck by lightning. And although the annual
fatality rate in the US is now 0.2 per million or less, the side effects of this particular
coup de foudre have lasted for years. The less innocuous, or less corporeally
evident ones did, however, impact how I learned about your cousin’s niece, the
details of which I can’t keep straight, and for that, I apologize.
A Lichtenberg figure scars over certain parts of a victim’s body. It is fern-like in
appearance and sprawling, spanning an entire arm, chest, leg, back. Colloquially
referred to as lightning flowers or skin feathers, professionally as arborescent
erythema or keraunographic markings, the scars result from the rupturing of
capillaries beneath the skin and generally fade within a few days, but you know just
as well as I a chance encounter may blossom disrepair, whereby one remains
nursing and picking at scar tissue indefinitely.