Purge me with hyssop, and I shall be clean:
***
]redux[
While love was made in likeness the question grew. It became the size of all things that inserted their fists to the elbow, and it nearly choked to a close for all it liked. At last it resorted to the fist of its own hand, which it forced into the depths of its cleft, and there it rested and held itself open, and there it expanded, impaled on its own limb, and was plunged. So it was the wounded rooted around in the wounded looking for resemblance. It was like reaching into reflection, the lake rippling into glass that shook to pieces overhanging trees and sky. It was like listening for avowals in the echoes from the cliffs: millions yawned open, unanswered. The size of the scattered and the size of the mute were too many to feed into the mouth of the question. How could they all be fed? The lake shivered in the breeze, the soul lost sight of its reflection, and the minnows nipped and prattled at a fisherman’s castoff catch. Entrails, gill skin waved in the current like a soft shroud over the carcass and the minnows plunked mouthfuls from the open flesh. Their mouths made a sound as they broke the surface, a gasp, a puncture, and the soul thought it sounded like hunger.
