The Ghent Review Volume1, Number 1, summer 2016 | Page 44

Fall of Adam our mark yet featureless creatures abide. Slow tide of the
mothering sea. Old graces and new worlds. So let me contradict myself even
to the millionth part of the smallest decimal point: clip-clop, clip-clop.
My subtle gestures as counter-command to the waves. I am young Angus
again. See me ride the dolphins of my desire. O sea see me!
A gesture and a subtle word. Chain-linkage of the mind.
My mind. No other to be mine. In the flesh sir, in the flesh. Incarnation and
annunciations. Like a figure wandering out of El Greco into a Breugel
setting to wander back again.
A reply sir, a reply!
Mythos of an island. Sailors. Fisher-folk. The nets that I have cast against
those nets that there be transubstantiation! (forgive my exclamations). Land
stories also. Hero with a crow on his shoulder or the dying gaul with his
sword beneath him (not under a stone).
Termination of the race. New race begun: tick-tock, tick-tock.

-I suppose you…
Thus begins their sly inquisitions in nineteenth century mode.
-…do not see it as irrefutable.
-Or perhaps you acknowledge but will not admit to it.
-Admit? Must I offer evidence?
-Of innocence or guilt?
-You are placing a terrible burden on him.
-Every admission carries its own weight and consequence.
-Consequence? How did we get from a supposition to a consequence?
-It’s the logic of inevitability.