On Which Everything Now Hinges: Diane Seuss

April 27, 2020, Kate Belew With Diane Seuss (Kalamazoo, Michigan)

I mean, it was a window but it wasn't a window.

I mean, it didn't look out, but it definitely didn't look in. 

I am so tired of looking anywhere, I miss mud.

I miss add-a-pearl necklaces. I miss blood.

I mean, I'm not so sure what it means to miss anyway.

Nostalgia for a past that barely happened.

There is a back yard with a bear in it, and mugwort,

and a plant called hesperis, which also goes by queen's

gilliflower, sweet rocket, and mother-of-the-evening.

And there is a branch that bends almost to break, but 

it is in that tension, between bending and breaking,

on which everything now hinges.

And maybe that's what I'm trying to say about windows 

or if not windows, doors, at least not not-doors.