Open Writing

I lay my palms just so, over his face.
The pads of my fingers search among the rocks.
The balls of my thumbs dredge the ditches from nose to jaw, from jaw to ears.
I dig in, clearing runnels, pushing aside flesh, lifting bones and letting them drop.

Unnhh, he grunts, That's good.

My fingers plough his scalp, scouring paths through the scrub of his hair,
Letting the chalk show through.
I move the skin against the bone, loosen it, shift it this way and that
'Til I can peel it back in soft flaps and lay it out in quiet folds.

Down the slope beneath the skull runs a line of small boulders.
With thumbs I gouge and puddle the clay around each one
And shift aside the dried fibres of last season's nerves.

Ohh, he mutters, That's better.

Thumb before and fingers behind, I grip his ears
And pull, pull, pull, slowly, inexorably,
Tearing them softly from the sides of his head like leaves from a stalk.

I shake him by the back of the neck 'til his head rattles loose like a pot on a pestle.
I run my fingers beneath the rim, smoothing away the grit.

Mmnnh, he mumbles, That's good.

I place my hands just so, clasping his skull.
My fingers press and clutch and crush.
The heels of my hands, pile drivers, stave in his cranium, the temporal and the parietal,
'Til bone cracks and splinters, edges lifting like broken paving.

Aaahhh, he sighs, That's better.

Lowering my mouth I breathe between the cracks,
sending slow blasts of heat down into his brain's cave,
Melting and loosening all that lies there, tight-packed.

Gently inserting my finger tips I feel around for concepts, opinions, notions, theories, thoughts, noughts, crosses, symbols and words, words, words.
I draw them forth and fling them away.

Ppp-fff-sss. A puff of moist breath escapes from the corner of his mouth. The earth sleeps.