Shawn Huelle

Three Ton Coworker - and some motor somewhere whines

"a dream like a plaid skirt that takes forever to fall to the floor" —Frank Stanford, The Battlefield Where the Moon Says I Love You, line 1816

and so listening somewhere to the sound of intermittent hammering of something perhaps metal and the whole time I'm thinking not only about the sound of the hammering but also about the sound of the water running by behind the building and the cars driving by and the people walking by and other sounds I can't identify and as I'm listening to all this I'm also thinking about beginning and beginning again she said let's start over instead of let's start fresh and though these distinctions hardly matter here I am am making them anyway while the guy with the hammer coughs and drags something from one place to another and some motor somewhere whines just a little but where was I why was I thinking about starting and perhaps how I should have answered was let's always be starting let's always be at the beginning let's start that permanent revolution the theorists are always going on about but instead of Marxism and a whole state or nation instead of a people a whole people instead of some motley unruly heterogeneous mass and but here's a small problem doesn't the word mass imply homogeneity doesn't the word mass imply singularity so use the word group instead she said and move on yes instead of some motley group but she interrupted we are a motley group of two and that's kind of what I'm trying to get at we are yes you're right not homogenous even when we mix and you are further correct when you say there needs to be more friction because you certainly cannot run a permanent ongoing revolution you cannot build up to another and another shot heard round the world you cannot find enjoyment if everything just slides off of everything else and now the man with the hammer or at least I'm assuming it's him is yelling in perhaps Italian perhaps Greek and the water is still moving out there and someone closer is moving sheet metal and making inadvertent thunder and the water is still moving out there