Now Vines Upon the House's Frame

The absurdity subsides, a stranger now, momentarily freed from the Kafka-esque absurdity of perpetual misfortune. Without such calamity, such excuse, the narcissist is laid bare.

The South emerges upon his sallow frame, suddenly, torn cloth wrapped as wisteria vines. A year ago, tuberculosis brought health, buttressing his dreams as dreams, destroying the advance of the previous year. Now, in mimicry he speaks. Without referent he returns to that place in Cumberland Estates, filled with the sobriety of a millenarian whose schools remain temples.