To say again because repetition. Because repetition is the death of death.
To say maturation to infinity means an evolution beyond who you were born to be. Means a boiling to the point of air. Means an assimilation to the sky and its vault. Never forget the vault. To say an escape from all conditions and contingencies inescapable in life. A means of divestment, of all assets to prove anything but. A denial of inheritance. Dissent from who. A negation of lines, fences, walls in the shade of their very existence. Exigencies. Means that though I am in the wrong heaven it is only because I think this is the wrong heaven (and so to say that once I believed the wrong heaven was possible, that wrongheaveness was in fact fungible, a presence the universe does not contradict nor even challenge). Doubtless I will mature past all thought at some future of eternity. Now. Or other. Soon in the oases’ prism of soon, I await. An I, I wait doubtless.
Listen and I will say what I have said. In this heaven as in any heaven I am no longer a Jew. In this heaven as in any heaven I am no more a Jew than I’m not. Jewful and Jewless. Listen. Then hear. Understand. To be religious in heaven is to be truly fanatic. Every day is no day and is Sabbath. There is no more reward. There is nothing to live for and no whys to pray. Listen in no heaven am I named what I once thought my name was. What once I Jonathan knew my name to be. What my Jonathan had been according to those who had named me (Aba and the Queen, after my greatgrandAba dead) and not what my name is of myself. My name for myself is now merely Listen, to follow the laws, which are merely the hatreds, of the living while in heaven is to disrespect your own death. To adapt. No longer. To survive. Not anymore. In no heaven is my Aba my Aba, and the Queens here are no Queen of mine. To be forever estranged, even amid your own congregation, and to be forever wandering, even within your own encampment, and only because they make me a stranger, and only because they make me a wanderer, they who would be I only if, I who would be they only why — the selfelected elect, the selfchosen chosen, the selfrighteously rightful inhabitants of this heaven who are still religious, amazingly so, even here, who have here become even more religious, ever more religiously religious, amazingly so, especially here. Listen to my mouth disembodied. Hear through my ears, one pierced, the other is shredded. Understand through me exploded, dispersed, ensharded, in pieces. That parts of me: a finger, a toe, a nose or else a liver, an antique residue of our anatomy: a spleen — they are still occasionally what those alive would regard as sentimental. Nostalgic. But this too will pass. Sometimes the death of these habits or traditions or laws (whatever you want to call them, they’re called) saddens me in the extreme. Other times the passing of these frequencies, these inevitabilities, these inescapables, makes me happier than the vault can contain. Mostly however I am ambivalent about and to this death. Thriving off the fund of numb. And so to my death too. Sunned. Both were inevitable. Are. Or at least one happened and another will happen, and so you will notice that I still say and so think Will happen because a mind of mine still needs to think of or at least wants to believe in a future. Listen that that too will pass. Into waiting for waiting. Which will pass as well, on its own. There is no waiting in the future and there is no future in the (you understand). Listen and then passing will pass. Hearing too. Again await the all over again. Understand then listen anew.
A part of me: usually the head of my penis, or my left sagging testicle, the enraged animal yellowing a kidney of mine or else a fetus forever gestating there, maybe the taboo hindquarter of either thigh, perhaps my right fluttery eyelid — all destroyed once, all to be made whole once again and again in the sanctuary of every memory had — a part of me, whichever part, now still holds fast, cleaves one can say in my second language: Cleave, which in American means both To rend and To adhere, To cling close or Cleave that Aba said often Cleave that Aba always said was one of his favorite words in any language, in any of their opposing definitions sundering two meanings from one sound. Whichever shard of me cleaves to, still cleaves to and must cleave to history overwhelming. Whole half a millennium of waiting and waiting for redemption when our true redemption was in the waiting. And waiting. Again scales, slung across the whites of my Aba’s dead eyes again. If only he could have seen me now. And especially now that he can’t. An allowance, allow me. I left my permit in my pants on my body in blood on the earth. This me an indulgence as harmless as the Three popsicles? how the Queen always said You indulge him too much and how Aba wouldn’t disagree before dinner, bathtime, bed and then sleep (the way those red pops would melt from ice to water is my stain on the street, sticky with litter and pain). And so while this me lasts, however longingly long, I should like to consecrate this homesick history, mine — to vial and stop this mad gushing past. To save it. At least a portion thereof. To store it up for the famine attendant on hope. Bottle it corked for the Friday. Not for the sake of martyrs or teardrop lineages, of victories and all that insensate fell star stuff who could ever have hoped to have understood in life. But for and only for the sake of Them, theirs a sake of one dark’s duration it seems to me now if only for Their sake. I and this is almost too difficult, too said for me to say that I cleave to this identity for and only for the memory — mine — of my Aba and the Queen. For them how I loved them. And for the expectations they once had for my own memory. Expectations becoming love in their ripening. A memory to be had by others. Becoming. Others I never made in an image I felt becoming the world.
“Metaphor”
Alef-Beit-Alef. Heaven is like the early evening or as Aba always said Dusk into evening into night late night into early morning or as Aba always said Dawn of my tenth birthday the night before the day I died the morning I was murdered exploded incendiaried bombed blown up blasted away any way I died (but I didn’t know that then I only knew that the Queen wanted me needed me to go to sleep but first to have my bath and made Aba make sure of that though only after our dinner beginning with mushroom soup during which Aba said that his Aba my grandAba had known all the different kinds and multitudinously multinuminous species and other taxonomical types of mushrooms that he had picked them for years From the forests around his house in It wasn’t then ha’Ukraine Aba said It’s called mycology the study of mushrooms this Mushroomologic that there must be something to it this Mushroomtry this Mushroomsophy he went on and on laughing to himself until the Queen said to Be quiet and eat your soup it’s getting cold The Soup Aba always ate with a tablespoon and I always ate with a teaspoon though it was soup and not tea with mint which was served later though sometimes To demonstrate solidarity with my son as Aba always said he too ate his soup and not just mushroom soup but also pea soup and at other times beet soup which is called borscht and tomato soup too occasionally with a teaspoon and not the tablespoon Aba usually used though he never even once ate a table with it and which the Queen always used to eat her mushroom soup too which was set alongside a fork to eat her salad with Three firm ripe tomatoes the Queen always said and three peeled cucumbers and one pepper green with envy of its seeds removed to the trash as the Queen always said A few small green onions say three of them For good measure then olive oil good olive oil and the juice of half a lemon and salt and spices