Mark Young

from Genji Monogatari

II. The Broom Tree

Sometimes he guessed
correctly, sometimes
not; but he preferred
to do such things him-
self rather than call in
the others who were
paid to do the tasks. A
way of adding drama,
of turning emails into
fortune cookies by making
an inside verse out of the
imagined message. He spent
little time with his bride.

XIV. Channel Buoys

The light, the shadows, the
tracks, the curve. He was
reminded of what a
fortune-teller had once
said to him—are miracles
really capricious magic or
just modern Tagalog verbs
that serve as a paradigm
for other such personal
solstices? It’s this mixture
that makes it one of the least
understood areas in the
evolution of selfish
elements. Suddenly he was
down around zero. He
strained at a gnat & swallowed
a camel. With its clichés
of southern pageantry the red
light of the burning wicker man
cast a lurid glow over a
substantial fraction of the
drosophila genome. Soon
he would have personal energy
at home from a machine.