XIII. SOMNAMBULA
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Geryon awoke too fast and felt his box contract.
Hot pressure morning. Houseful of tumbling humans and their languages.
Where am I?
Voices from somewhere. He made his way thickly downstairs
and through the house
to the back porch, huge and shadowy as a stage facing onto brilliant day.
Geryon squinted.
Grass swam towards him and away. Joyous small companies of insects
with double-decker wings
like fighter planes were diving about in the hot white wind. The light
unbalanced him,
he sat down quickly on the top step. Saw Herakles stretched on the grass
making sleepy talk.
My world is very slow right now, Herakles was saying. His grandmother
sat at the picnic table
eating toast and discussing death. She told of her brother who was conscious
to the end but could not speak.
His eyes watched the tubes they were putting in and pulling out of him so
they explained each one.
Now we are inserting sap of the queen of the night you will feel a pinch
then a black flow, said Herakles
in his sleepy voice that no one was listening to. A big red butterfly
went past riding on a little black one.
How nice, said Geryon, he’s helping him. Herakles opened one eye and looked.
He’s fucking him.
Herakles! said his grandmother. He closed his eyes.
My heart aches when I am bad.
Then he looked at Geryon and smiled. Can I show you our volcano?