CLOAK/1.13iii

When seen only the skins of forms, without apprehension of their bones, lumps and bubbling in an inflated flatness, a badly stuffed tiger.

Think sometimes, An hour I don't get back—remove the here and now from the friction of the not-elsewhere.

All we ever have are notes and sketches, brief dispatches posted to its outskirts by the witnesses of bitter struggle—
Indian wars, the largely internecine strifes exploited—
a combat of the interior, without words, or only flung words, without coherence,
and in darkness, without form, only bulk that blunts, sharp edges that surprise.
We have recovered artifacts, their uses uncertain,
we trade in them back by the coast, away from the fighting, where hemmed in by hosts of refugees a few command posts are becoming cities, fattening on spoils—
where the refugee camps are becoming suburbs.