Kaie Kellough

from high school fever / nowhere, prairie

inside the music was a hiss, the hiss of hash smoke released by heat, the hiss of
3M tape riding a slow reel       the ambient release of doubt in the darkened
half of the brain, the dust and static crackling, a hiss that engulfed the sound
      a hiss that became a white roar, cloud or air or smoke drubbing inside
me, inside of which there must have been a door       inside the cascading
foam of kaieteur       analog memory become white noise
      density of whispers in both ears, this       my thesis, there must have
been a door inside somewhere       if i could pass through       and
find myself in the past       but the whispered babble dropped into a
rumble       a pattern, a bassline that skanked froth       and locked with a
drum’s low kick – maybe the drum’s black period was –       but the door was
closed, and the music took shape again, mobile architecture lighter than air
      brass wafting over the cyclic song, and i listening, feeling almost – found
      i’d almost reached through no return to touch       but there was
nothing there, only space, an ever-receding gleam, the dying luminosity of
alpha centauri, winked out of existence like species, but still lingering in the
onyx
      drip of a dream, maybe. i was dreaming. maybe? the smoke swirled to a
drop, the skeletal sound a supple graph of notes, of pure time and form
      steady on the air       i am 400 years from home, with
stardust and salt mixing in my rizla. high       by the mute dials’
nocturnal fizzle

From Magnetic Equator by Kaie Kellough
Copyright © 2019 by Kaie Kellough

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