Strap

A bit of metal on my brown bag juts out like a shoulder. A loop of thicker meal hangs from it. The latter is linked to a strap that shapes bold curves alongside the outside of the more passive bag. It is though a quick eel makes its way between the legs of a partly submerged rhinoceros, avoiding being squashed, but still locked to the life of the rhinoceros – still unable to precisely escape. Even when the waterhole is empty of terrestrial things, the eel has only one thought – less a thought than an instinctive inclination – to wait for the heavy legs that will provide its cue to swim and dance. The eel’s bright eyes flash in the muddy, sombre, middling depths. It can sense the pull of the metal at its head and tail. It can sense the risk that this entails, not only of being crushed, but of being held forever by this scene, unable to overcome it, unable to imagine any other way of subsisting – ecstatic in this terminal state.