This drawing responds to the chapter R from Marina Dora Martino’s manuscript Cut your own Bread. An alternative Dictionary. Excerpt:
R
[…]
Rain
= ! ! ! ! ! !!! !! ! ! ! ! !!!! ! ! ! !!! ! ! ! ! ! !!!!!!!!!! ! ! ! ! ! ! !! ! ! !! ! !!! ! ! ! !!!! ! ! !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! !! !!! ! ! ! !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! !!! !!!! !!! !!!! !!! !! ! ! ! !!!! !!! ! ! ! ! ! !!!!!! !! ! ! ! !!!! ! ! ! !!! !
Reality = Rain! Like bullets
through the racoon’s fur. Rain chewing
the desolate soil and spewing
puddles; rain feeding intricate
brambles of thorns. The racoon sits in the middle
of a small pool of rain and after soothing its scratched
throat, its wrecked old throat,
its doomed-racoon throat,
it falls asleep in the water.
It has a dream.
[…]
Ruin = this morning pristine sand,
tomorrow clean bones. The fire
ants are finding out what a racoon’s
made of. By noon,
the racoon resembles a broken drum.
By late afternoon, the ruins
of an ancient fortress.
By night, not much is left.
Rustle = but there is another one who is ready for theft.
While the ants, red-bellied and bloated,
finish their banquet, the devil
lizard, silent lizard
of the desert, rises
dusting off its back
layers of fuliginous
sand and makes of them
an exquisite dessert.
By morning, the racoon
in the ants’ belly and the ants
in the lizard’s belly, are moving
towards the next place
where they’ll pause.
The wind carries upon
the desert the rustle
of sand echoing
in the racoon’s
empty jaws.
Text © Marina Dora Martino