---
title: I am
genre: verse

id: i-am
toc: "I am"

project:
    title: Elegies for alternate selves
    class: elegies
    order: 13
    prev:
    - title: On formal poetry
      link: onformalpoetry
    next:
    - title: How it happened
      link: howithappened
...

| I am a great pillar of [white smoke][].
| I am Lot's nameless wife encased in salt.
| I am the wound on Christ's back as he moans
| with the pounding of a hammer on his wrist.
| I am the nail that holds my house together.
| It is a strong house, built on a good foundation.
| In the winter, it is warm and crawling things
| cannot get in.  This house will never burn down.
| It is the house that I built, with my body
| and with my strength.  I am the only one who lives
| here.  I am both father and mother to a race
| of [dust motes that worship me as a god][].  I have
| monuments built daily in my honor in dark
| corners around the house.  I destroy all of them
| before I go to bed, but in the morning
| there are still more.  I don't think I know
| where all of them are.  I [don't think][not think] I can get
| to all of them anymore.  There are too many.

[white smoke]: deathstrumpet.html
[not think]: howithappened.html
[dust motes that worship me as a god]: plant.html