The Integral
by Rajnesh Chakrapani
Issue 1: Grotesque
Still from The Calendar by Sebastian Tovar
My tincture – when the bubbles
floated by my face – submitted oscillations.
Velocity of arch, vaguely – you.
Canonical of form – sleep on a forehead
& the whole night feet run through I –
as if some kind of chairs above.
Seized black eyes, sploshes – young
I glanced up – orbits written yesterday.
Trees registered to me & blue rayless –
I desired to sentence of I statements.
Narration – devoid of approaching figures.
Flapped tracery – the flinch of not human.
Distance becomes altitude – Veridical bubbles.
Natural habitats – the same personality from last year.
A distribution to explain myself – call of
“I want to be like –” cotton texture of cheek.
Press of cheekbone into collar – into my dusk. Yellowless face.
Breath from a can A-1986 – I call you A. Open mouthed sound.
The oceanic – numbered to sides & amorous.
Vectors of locked on air – one was two & you and I stayed in the middle.
But when you/I looked closer – outside the ocean & saw
a world by propeller – love the water that is not wet. Just went.
Went through the sun – blink or heat of you/I
years blister & next week bruises – metal discharge of sky.
Wheels you/I said – stanzas on sexual hygiene. Cloth woven.
Torn decrees – the I hate phrase, honey unsubmittable.
Dust under the mattress – brought me back. Altitude of figures &
temporary gravity – in the tiny glass of my chest. War in bronchial
corpuscles, brackish – timetables. Tin voice.
Discovered I had a number of numbers. Revolutions by chance A –
letter from which my airways laundered – mountain of cadence.
Cusps the body – migraines. Top soil of hands.
Cheeks. Animals – imprint asynchronous & melts under the armpits.
Vacancy remember flowers – method of conveyance. Spiky plumage.
Spider rolled off miry – a barometer. Sky a cyclical murmur.
Oscillations by bushel – reel of expressions used up.
In Zamyatin’s We, a mathematical One State creates the Integral, an object sent to colonize other civilizations. D-503 is the main architect of the Integral. Though D has already been given a sexual partner, he begins to love another named I-330, calling her I. D finds through I that he has begun to delay his timely reports. I reveals she is part of a larger plan to use the Integral as an explosive device to remove the Green Wall. D’s first thought is a poem, not a story, no craft. I tells him there are no final revolutions, just as there is no highest number.
