C. Dylan Bassett

Act

     SCENE.
This is the scene in which the devil is played by one woman and one man. First, it is very clear. God may or may not exist, says the man. The woman seems to be sleeping. She wears a white hospital gown. A voice enters but is not responded to. Not even the birds know where they’re going. SCENE. This is the scene in which the lake is a red door waiting. A child’s hammer. No one else for miles. Emptiness as a vehicle etc. Or, perhaps there is no mystery at all. No thunder.

     SCENE.
The curtain opens and the audience almost recognizes her. The world at night, hands gesturing to illustrate a sinking ship. What’s lacking in the silent version? What’s felt in the invisible world? The water does not exist until she steps into it. “Would you rather be invisible or never born?”

     SCENE.
This is the scene in which she eats feathers. October brings its grammar. Early sounds of waves, gradual loss of meaning. She does not leave the room, or else she cannot. She is not who she wanted to be, as if behind her mouth a second mouth pushes through.

     SCENE.
A scene with always one more window to look through. The distance between light and dark is two birds. She’s been shaking her head no for twenty years, speaking her own language. Stairs, a door. All the points from which a departure can be made. There’s not enough time for her to forget.

     SCENE.
In this scene, gravity is depicted as angels falling. The audience applaud when death addresses them directly. I want to show you how I disappear, she says.

     SCENE.
This is the scene in which no one knows what to photograph. There is only the image of people. An explanation of tide patterns. (They won’t find the body until much later.) A room leading to a smaller room. And then another.

     SCENE.
This is the scene in which the bodies are not well defined. Imagine a barn with a single wooden chair. The terror of a firetruck in the middle of the night. It’s a familiar song repeated. He leans over to kiss her, but kisses a bottomless map.

     SCENE.
In this scene: he wakes to an explanation of music. A fruit falling on a field. It’s worse to hear the dogs and never see them. The world was orange since Tuesday. Not even one idea. More waiting than ever thought possible. More than the usual number of crows. Was it a dream? He doesn’t notice.

C. Dylan Bassett currently attends the Iowa Writer’s Workshop. He is the author of five forthcoming chapbooks, Some Futuristic Afternoons (Strange Cage), Lake Story (Thrush Press), No Audience (alice blue press), One Continuous Window (Mouthfeel Press), and The Invention of Monsters, co-written with Summer Ellison (iO Books). His recent poems are published/forthcoming in journals such as Black Warrior Review, Cincinnati Review, Columbia Poetry Review, Diagram, Inter/rupture, Pleiades, and Verse Daily. He’s received awards and fellowships from the Academy of American Poets, the Stadler Center for Poetry, the Morrie Moss Foundation and the University of Iowa. He co-edits likewise folio / likewise books.