Sound archeology—the relationship of ululating to echo
What he didn’t say to her in recognition is what he did not recognize himself. Slowly the air whipped in argumentation. Sword of Damocles. Two sides to every story. He said you are not listening. She replied you are always talking. Last night, he responds, I dreamt an egg cracked open—your saber-toothed sweater was inside, unthreading itself in tendrils—weaving through sewers’ grills. Water began to pour from the sky. It rained, she asked. Yes, it rained. He recalled the owl blinking back at him the day before at the zoo. Petite sauvage, she puled. Jesus, he said. Not really leapt, but leaned back. Electricity buzzed underneath his cap. “Mother,” he breathes. The tree is a tower to the sky; if he was smaller he’d climb it now to almost autumn light, the Manhattan skyline, filled with the buildings’ flight.
The bird lands the first time he speaks the word. It lands on his head. He stops. The bird moves to his hand. Architecture aside, the present ghostly matters.