Their quiet is an outline of desire.

Wherever else you witness desire at work, it was already described by a flock of invisible anemone.

Tentacles saccharin or impossibly multicolor.

Most often, when we set out to study this sort of specimen, it is first necessary to postulate a where, a site.

We must situate ourselves according to the likelihood of any inhabitable environment which might generate or shelter our specimens.

To this day, not one of these migratory anthozoa has been found.

We extrapolate descriptions of what they should appear to be, by way of the residue we discover dressing our emotional truths, the modes of contagion which seem to be their rule.

Invisibility stems from an apparent bastion against the present, a functionality which requires them not to be witnessed, save in restrospect.

We can, however say that they are real, as we have found and read their writings. Signature as trace, secretions which inlay our words and wants.

How many times on a winter's day do we feel the sting and tickle of hot places? How many times does a plain glass of water make us long for the best remembered vintage?

There is a contagion of realities at work, a communicative toxin which incites us to deep, irrational desires, impertinent urges, the reach of the not-yet-become.

There are tentacles that touch us as we move through the void, and this is the announcement, forecast if you prefer, of a project whose end is to locate, capture, and classify these passive causal beasts, so integral to the human experience.

© 2002 Joseph Robertson

 

INVISIBLE ANEMONE
JOSEPH ROBERTSON

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