7. Aaron C Thomas

The rain is falling and it is wet but

I stare at the corner anyway

more intent on this wall and what it

has to tell me teach me tell me. Maybe

there is something there. Perhaps

if I move closer or further away

perhaps if I could just hold onto

things stop dropping them but–…what?..

the buzzing?..yes…all the time the buzzing…

so-called…in the ears…though of course

actually…not in the ears at all…in the

skull…dull roar in the skull [1]

rain rice shoes rice blinds water shoes

water rain focus focus

focus back back back always backward

an image of myself shown back to me

always back but out of focus impossible

to see clearly actually I was too young and

had to wait in the other room. So I sat there

and waited, and waited and waited and waited.

And all I could see was this white screen

on this white wall. That’s what I remember. [2]

[1] Samuel Beckett, Not I, The Collected Shorter Plays, (New York: Grove, 1984), 213-23 at 218

[2] Denise Uyehara, Hello (Sex) Kitty: Mad Asian Bitch on Wheels, O Solo Homo: the New Queer Performance, edited by Holly Hughes and David Román, (New York: Grove, 1998),  375-409 at 387.