To attain any assured knowledge about the soul is one of the most difficult things in the world.

—Aristotle, On the Soul (De Anima)

When you are young
they tell you never to
stick your arm out the window
of a moving car. I used to be
annoyed when people talked
about the soul. Pastel-weary
Romanticism, yellowing at
the edges. An old phone,
with a real bell inside it,
will not stop ringing. In the
kitchen, I knock a ceramic dish
off the counter. It shatters
& scrapes along the floor.
Like a litter of kittens, the soul
runs in & squeals. But there
is no milk on the dish
& there are no kittens. The soul
sticks its arm out of the moving
body; or, the body sits helplessly
in the passenger’s chair, sticking
its arm out of the soul, hydrofoiling,
until of course a stand of cane
obtrudes & finger after finger
flies off in a hail of black blood.
Like a cat in the sun, the soul
knows what is going on. But
there is nothing going on. The
calls are coming from inside
the house. The house is empty
& we do not have a phone.

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