Abstract

Abstract

Abstract Justin Balog (bio) Gardeners zip tie the branchesof their saplings Magnetic northis the consciousness of birds Stiff weight despite the pain of low barometric pressureI’m on my knees praying for a part-time job If I could I wouldn’t say anything to Greenland its disappearing icerates which have never before been seen My hands sift through dirt that might never have been sifted throughI bought a plant for this responsibility Here we are moving as ifsome destiny tied us By morning the leaves will have already turnedto face the sun [End Page 207] Observation on Discovery I learn the Spaniards take their time, if not for health, maybe for the cascade of Pedrell down the narrow eaves of this near-dawn Catalonian boulevard where I am lost. I stop to stare at the map I stole from a boutique hotel, though the receptionist was so kind, on the street that opens like a harbor of boating flags, a canopy of clothes hanging from the balconies. If this is art, I think I finally understand. In the museum I visited earlier, the main installation was a floating bed frame, connected by steel strings, to the ceiling, above the main entrance, which, to me, seemed an apt description of faith. The bed, though, illustrated some current theory of the universe, the movement of gravity or the bending of light. How precious, then, are our moments of weightlessness? [End Page 208] My only friend in this country, drunk, without our keys, is two or four streets over, hopefully, where I left him. When he told me he had lost our keys, my heart felt as weightless as a toolbox. Where would we stay? We have a train in seven hours. What about our clothes? Or the hosts we’ve betrayed? Forgive me, I took the map because I am in a hurry. The unusual thing about the installation was that the sheets were rigid fishnets or a dark chicken wire. Light makes density ambiguous and gravity throws sheets like a chore. I am taking a minute to myself, in an alley, under a balcony, to breathe because I am sober and have to find us a place to sleep. I lean my head back against the gothic brick. The narrowness between buildings makes the perfect telescope. The shirts, the sheets, the delicateness of their gravity; night peeking through, exhibiting what I think the installation meant: a sculpture rotating with the Earth, everywhere, dangling like little experiments. How precious, these clothes we live in. [End Page 209] Justin Balog Justin Balog is a writer from Beach Park, Illinois. He holds a BS in biology from the University of Wisconsin–Madison. A graduate of the University of Michigan’s Helen Zell Writers’ Program with his MFA in poetry, he has received fellowships from the Vermont Studio Center and the University of Michigan. He was an assistant editor at Michigan Quarterly Review, where he co-founded MQR’s online, multimodal imprint, Mixtape. He has work appearing in Ploughshares, Narrative, and the Iowa Review. Currently, he is a student at Harvard’s Graduate School of Education. Copyright © 2022 Middlebury College