it’s something we hadn’t really thought about
until she mentioned it:
where i end and you begin, this permeable
layer
we’d assumed was a good thing
how we intermingled
commingled
(this is a reference not just to fluids and bodies but brainwaves)
(like shaky electrons and electronics through the conservatory air)
how can this be anything but good? how can this be anything?
and then she said “you should read about enmeshment” with a serious look
and now i’m not so
sure
this module is a topographic drum sequencer
this module is a dual dynamics gate
this module is a control voltage mixer
mappings:
we eat patch notes and cables
and wonder which title is the real one in a story whose meaning
is only known to the gap where we meet
or the line on the globe where we separate
ocean from ocean
between thesis and antithesis
there is a collective delusion
where we can’t touch
a blessing into birth into
an analog wave a rising a falling a mean of zero
a phase cancellation
i used to think that we’d jump
gaps but i wonder if the gaps are there
and if so what should be in them
+12V/-12V/+5V @ 3500mA
Eurorack form factor
ATA durability
all we need is a light attack
a soft expressive touch on the plate
electro capacitance
it’s less a mesh than a circuit
flowing instead of integrating
power on the move between us doing the work of
saline tears
raindrops
she says difference and doesn’t mean it philosophically but literally
the difference between us is not intellectual but my hand is your hand is our hand
and it takes two for this instrumentation to create empathy
and it takes us to divide this into symphony into synchronicity into
we
modulate operators
we represent vessels
in the network of veins sense
in the transporters of goods sense
spiderwebs below the skin and projected on maps
buoyed by and carrying electrolytes
capacitors released
our maps torn and mended
rearranged created new
1 knob/function
1V/octave
tempo controlled on detection of rise or fall
there’s so much going on that i can’t decipher
i think part of it’s in this song
and part of it’s in our blood
but none of it’s contained in either
of (us/them)
and it’s open to interpretation and that’s why people love it because it’s nothing and everything
this song this touch / this instrument this haunting
after Radiohead
Ricki Cummings is originally from Fargo, ND and living in Chicago, where they are pursuing a Poetry MFA at Columbia College Chicago. Their work has appeared in Ginger Piglet, Confluence, and Vallum, and was shortlisted for the Vallum Award for Poetry in 2015.
