new direction for my manuscript. cleaning it up. finding my feet. forced language in previous versions felt forced. yes. the other versions were false starts. All new now.
Here is the rough draft of the beginning:
Because It Was Corporeal They Did It With Marvelous Sublimity
our minds were not so much closed
as unready
to change our whole view
of how life is constructed (nostalgiac strictures of feeling)
Our memories are kitsched and must be refabulated
(St. Sebastian fucked against a tree with flimsy loincloth)
memories are the absolute denial of the accident
of birth (she tore her lips—this is the sound of the tearing—spread legs—liturgical—popped eyes—light on slanted windows— the midwife carried a glass for measuring blood loss)
what held and what
fell in that
bloodstate
what slapsong gibbers
us into existence
born
through
bloodfolds
life does not begin auspicious
memories fluffed-up
like dandelions
like a dead
tree floating
on a mountain
of water
like stray hairs
on the bedsheets