report

My friend Harvest Henderson sent me a homework assignment last week. My duty was to write a report about the last book I read. I have read many books in the last few months, mostly reference books and manuals having to do with publicity, publishing, aardvark maneuvering, and pro wrestling, but nothing nearly as resonating (and infuriating) as a book I finished a few months ago in Vietnam, Sons and Lovers, by DH Lawrence. Here is the digitized version of my "report":  Mother, take me into your bosom, let me suckle the soul from your flesh as father has done, as my brothers have done, my sister. I can pack you a picnic, brush your hair, massage your wounds for they are mine, I possess them, I eat them heartily and wait for more to be pulled from ovens onto plates lapped by tongue’s only we know how to sing, to say, to whisper. You blink in dreams, your hands caress me there, dare I say where, I will say here, down here, I dared to say, I did, but it must have happened sooner or later, you and I, hiding in cupboards and shelves, under trees, tiptoeing around so not to disturb all of them, everyone we know, strangers too, crippled by pathetic pain, and oh how they pale next to us, the stench of them festers, it reeks and rots and singes our nostrils like death. Don’t die mother, don’t leave me here in this cold house, where faint embers attempt to warm our trembling souls. Life is within you and there I shall crawl, curl up, speak through your lips, sew with your hands, waltz with your feet, piss with your bladder, listen with your ears, and inhale with your lungs, the fertile air of spring.