nahal suzanne jamir's i am the dead thing below

I Am the Dead Thing Below

the birds that I see circling while I drive to nowhere // I drive to be not-with
people, now my mother who is dying wants to she says and it’s okay because she’s
old she’s been talking about her death papers death rituals death dreams death
death death for her whole life she was born dead a dead thing and she tried to
make me one too by telling me by telling the not-yet story of her death and after
saying // when I die you’ll spit on my grave my grave my grave

the birds that I see circling while I drive // I drive to not-be // not me I don’t
feel at home in this body any more my father said my mother says the same thing
now my father compared his displacement to three-dimensional geometric
figures floating in space colliding not-atoms too big too ever-present and not
everywhere // never trust atoms they make up everything except for

the birds that I see circling while I // I drive to not-me to unknot me I have
place dysmorphia which is self dysmorphia and we talk about body dysmorphia
because we are so, so many and so much bodies, Yeats’ dying animals all of us...
all bodies no body // My mother is old and old things die my father was not and
should have had no death rituals but his shapes made one made up // everything
rituals fill space like me like my grave like

the birds that I see circling // I wonder if it’s always the same birds always the
same dead thing male or female young or old or middle-aged or suicide or lung
cancer // Waiting to exhale and all that jazz my own death should be jazz hands I
lift my hands from my father’s throat neck mouth from my mother’s chest from
the steering wheel to do jazz hands and smile smile like a camel about to spit
// We are called camel herders We are brown things from the desert We are not-people We are not with people We are not-be not me knot not knot // knock
knock who’s there?

the birds that I see // the rotten brown thing that cannot breathe because it has
no place but below but looking up at a circle Who can escape a circle—or draw
a perfect one // When the part of the body that holds the soul is finally decomposed / It becomes a circle, a hole that holds everything and who can escape

the birds that I see // I pass and look down from the sky to the road // no place //
Elsewhere my mother is dying and maybe at the last moment an atom made up a
beautiful lying dream about ruling victorious over the place // that contained the
beauty so a war would be fought over it over place over above about

the birds // I see // a butterfly quickly // wings are like hands and hands shake
and jazz like jazz into wings jazz into freedom // I look at the road through the
glass through a glass, darkly though I try not to and see a small spot of blood on the
windshield and wonder what I’ve killed