Index for X and the Origin of Fires by Ander Monson

A brother, radio, a winter full of snow and thoughts on Liz my X.

A clarinet melody line impressed in wax found in a sleeve above the mantle. Dad's Benny Goodman.

A foot going through a rotting wood deck. All the way up to the groin.

A moving, morbid feeling.

A protagonist.

A separation of the bone. Kidnapping of those bones for some dark purpose. Graverobbing from those still alive. A need for marrow. Understanding. Surgeon skill surgeon. Muddy waters of the Sturgeon River. Holding fish. How you have to wear long rubber boots to get in there. And what you get back out.

Absence. Anger at mine or hers. Ascertain. A way around.
--- Dear, this series patters, is a pattern

Alibi and alias.

Always goes without.

Amalgamation. Accumulation. What comes down in time accretes.

An anecdote: I'd destroy any matchbox cars my dad got for me. Pretend they were the bomb squad and take the hammer to them. Then put them in a can and bury them when I had enough. Ask my dad for more. He'd hold my hand when we went to the store to pick them out. The wax on the floor glistened. Did he hold my brother's hand. Was there a hand to hold.

An anecdote, reconstructed: after prom with Liz-after prom with Liz with streamers in their pockets. Streamers torn down from the new school gym, mementos of the dance. Liz and Jesse as friends, not dates. On their way out to Gay, Michigan, where the after-party was. Saw something in the road. Not drinking, talking. Listening to Cowboy Junkies. Some light in the car from those they passed. Still ice on the ground of course up here in Spring. More light leaking out from the fluorescence on his watch as he checks it because his Toyota's clock does not work. He slides the sunroof open so Liz can see the moon, so she can be happy. Cigarette light in passing cars. Dashboard's low emissions. Starlight: very old. An occasional streetlamp or jack-o-lantern out of season on a porch. Candles lit inside. A premonition of fire, upcoming accident.

An eye for the crucial bit of evidence.

Another, later incident: Crisco's sister. And all that went with that.

Any fragment is an art an artifact. Is an echo of the whole. Is an echo; is the whole.

Any kind of solace.

Any kind of story.

Anything you give me I will take.

Anything you want to tell me.
--- Vapor dear, I am coasting out, a satellite

At the after-party, Crisco drinking a half-liter of antifreeze. Crisco not realizing it wasn't Kool-Aid. Antifreeze tasting sweet. He being drunk. Then the Emergency Room and stomach-pump. What could we say or do as balm or blame.

Ballistics.

Blood,
age of stains
alcohol
as embedded in eyes
as evidence, insufficient or sufficient
as metaphor
as narrator
as representative of ego
as representative of teeth
collection, for alcohol analysis
from suspect
from victim
subtlety of
copper content of
crystal tests for
distinction of source
distribution patterns
enzyme markers
groups
inheritance of
hemoglobin variants
loss of, and desperation
omission of evidence in order to conceal crimes
on hands
removal of by aggravated washing
removal of by amputation
removal of by any necessary means
removal of by "Out! Out! Damned Spot"
removal of in order to sleep again
removal of in order to dream of smashing glass again
presence of
protein factors
species origin of
spectroscopic tests for
testing equipment
tests, catalytic
interference with
sensitivity of
where from
where to

Bluebells clustered around a telephone pole. The telephone pole adjoined by a junction box. The box opened and all the connections numbered and labeled inside, though not with names or phone identifiers.

Brother, a hoot and a bother
importance of
phenomenon of
relation to danger
to events
to fire
to light
to Liz
to locks
to mother
to radio
to Sault Ste. Marie
to sinking
to snowmobiles
to tools
to true events
stigmata
truth in telling
truth of
wanting things for
whereabouts of
wondering at
X, relationship to

Burn circle in the field out back past the garden.

Caliber of firearms.

Camera, lens & shutter speed.

Camera, types of
35mm
Fingerprint
Miniature
Polaroid
Press
Stereoscopic

Casts and replicas, equipment for
Moulage
Plaster
Silicone
Thermoplastic
Wax

Charred material, collection of.

Chloral hydrate as poison.

Christer, who also had a brother.

Cigarette and tumbler. Snub-nose .38 and hat. Some irony. Some egg.

Cloud formations in the sky remind me of when I was young and we'd move from state to state. On vacation. Everything was liquid then, and better.

Conversation snippets. Cans tied with string and hung from the telephone pole.

Crime begins at home: vandalism; minor breaking and entering; subverting phones. Pirate broadcasting. Shoplifting. Setting traps.

Crisco being rushed to the emergency room. Where vomiting would be induced. Where a stomach would be pumped. What if that was a passive suicide attempt.

Crisco named for his greasy hair.

Crisco's sister who used to babysit me when I was younger. Who was raped and stabbed and raped. Who died. Whose loss meant a what began as a germ in the body. My absence at her funeral. Crisco my friend. I am sorry but I couldn't take it.

Cry.

Defenses: madness, rage, or self-defense. Also innocence.

Density, of glass
of blood
of light
of paint
of snow
of soil
of space
of text

Did he have his arms back then.

Direction of break of glass.

Dispersion, of glass. Of staining.

Distance of firing shot
Concentrated explosions
Pattern of damage

Distrust of social function. Distrust of prom.

Distrust your client. She will mislead you.

Does it glisten under light.

Does it have a pattern to it.

Does it have an equal and opposite reaction.

Does it move at all.

Does it move like blood in crevasses
in the linoleum seams
on glass
on tables
through snow

Doll heads bought from hobby stores and pushed down into grass. Sometimes I come upon them on our property when I sit down, tired from running through the pines.
--- Dear, distance is a hush a shush a glass of milk delivered through ether like a dose

Dream, dreamer, dreaming.

Edge
of meaning
of precipice
of road

Ejector marks.

Electric shock.

Electron microscope.

Electron radiography.

Electronic analysis and data processing.

Electronic life.

Electronic reconstruction of a life.

Electronic tracking
of a heart bowing under pressure
of a heartbeat
of a person through the ice
of vocal modulations

Electrons clustered around a heart.

Elegiac light.

Elegies for everyone.

Elegy.
Elegy for.
--- Dear, does this whispered reassurance come too late

End suggests a means. Some cause. Abuse?

Energy dissipation in vehicular accidents.

Energy, kinetic.
Energy, potential.

Erasure, restoration of.

Ethyl alcohol as poison. As intoxication.

Evidence, collection of
containers for
--- Distance is a duffel bag filled with onions that you must carry

Exemplars.

Explosions, concentrated.

Explosions, diffuse.

Extractor marks.

Father's voice on the tape though it's unclear what he's saying. Sounds like he's talking to the radio or to the night. Whichever comes first.

Faultline.

Film: an answer-the movie Dead Kids 2 that Liz made in response to the original Dead Kids which takes place at some small Midwestern college and is dull and old and long. Me on film: a steak knife in my hand, serrated blade to throat. Did this happen or did it not.

Fire, determining origin of.
Origin itself.

Firing pin impressions.

Footprints of my brother and I in concrete at the farmhouse which now is sold to someone else who got rid of the dog we left with them.

Glass, specific gravity of
Backward fragmentation of
Radial cracks in

Handwriting, primary factors in.

Handwriting, systems of.

Heliotropes pivot to find light.

His clarinet up in the attic with all the radios. Its case very like a coffin.

How to choose what to hit: Suppose you are going 50 mph on a 2-lane road. Here comes a car toward you-and now, in your own lane, a second car passing it. One is filled with eyes. And one with salt and returnable cans. Two cars are racing toward you-you have to leave the road. Suppose that you had to choose hitting one of the following objects. Which is the safest one to hit?
a. a large tree
b. a bridge abutment
c. utility pole
d. a large boulder
--- Dear, distance is the distillation of motion from emotion

Iceblink.

Icelight. Pulsing buoys on the lake. Snowmobilers' headlights in the ditches, pitching wildly.

Identify.

Identify with me.

Identify with me: my brother's lost his arms. Everyone who sees him asks However Did That Happen? And me dumb with nothing in mouth or mind.

Identity,
causal
of properties
of source

Inks,
ball-point pen
carbon
dye
examination of
extracted from the body
iron gallotannate in
left from love
logwood
made from squid
nigrosine
nutgall
printing
stains left behind from
tattooing with
this
types of
analphabetic
waiting for

Instead of analyzing evidence.

Iodine as poison.

Is a hibernating heart.

Is atmosphere.
--- Dear, this is coming to a sun a sum

Is bomblight over snow.

Is bombsong ricocheting through the air like radio or signals of distress.

Is cutting the bark away from trees.

Is descending like the last few maple keys in the first snowstorm of the year. Is out of place.

Is in the shape of a halo. Means something else though.

Is light through snow as seen from underneath as beautiful as I could imagine.

Is serious stuff.

Is symbol.

Is without a hat.

Italian Hall Disaster in Calumet, Michigan, 1908.

Iteration.

Jesse, hoarder of Atari games.

Jesse through the ice. All this you know. Plus the others who had gone before.

Jesse through the ice. Crisco's sister. My brother, the sleuth slumbering downstairs.

Jesse who had lost his index finger and thumb in a bomb-making accident a year before.

Jesse who would drive with just his knee if you were in the car.

Jesse whom I cared for.

Keeping your balance, importance of.

Lead as poison.

Lectins.

Lever action rifles.

Like looking through a keyhole in a world with no keys.

Like looking through a keyhole into a bathroom with a cast iron tub and steam in the air.

Like looking through a pinhole.

Likes to feel the punishment of rain pinpricks on scalp.

Linen.

Lipstick.

Liz and Jesse.

Liz and Jesse as friends.

Liz, dream obits for.

Liz, dreams of, continued for years after her death.

Liz my obfuscation.

Liz my poultice my plagiarist. Slow-mo replay Liz.

Liz my scrim my gauze pad hand wrap. Liz my char, chiaroscuro.

Liz my X.

Liz my X my only X.
--- Dear, this is where the pressure is the plainest

Liz my unknown quotient, my lonely roamer. Liz my rune.

Liz not my Y or Z, not a nor c, but X and X alone. Liz my mark my spot. Liz my crux, my cross, my crossing guard, my crease my pall my greased ball bearing bearer.

Liz, still life under ice.

Liz who I had wanted for a long time.

Liz with Jesse there at prom.

Liz with Jesse there at prom as friends only, I tell myself.

Liz with me.

Liz with me in dreams in aquamarine.

Magic.
--- Dear, this is not meant as maze

Magnifiers.

Magnifying glasses used to concentrate sun, to burn my name in wood, to give the smolder to some bug.

Matches, used in starting fires.

Medulla of hair.

Memory: a blue mixing bowl filled with deveined shrimp my mother left behind. I am five. I eat the whole thing in the sun on the picnic table which is made of rough wood. I try to relate this to my dad, but he says it didn't happen.

Mercury, as fleet-foot god
as measurer
as poison
as quick-change artist

Microscopic evidence, value of.

Minicameras. Fake books in which I'd keep French-to-English dictionaries.

Motion pictures. Light on screens is meaning.

My brother says nothing in the face of some action, some event, a what and how.

My brother's diary which I will not read. How does he keep it you will ask. He holds a pen between his teeth. Steadies with his lips. He's worn a mark there that shows when he smiles. Dad buys these tools for him.

My brother's hair is gold like straw and sunshine. Some honey looks like it. Being out all day in sun.

My fascination with crime: novels, hard-boiled detective thrillers, mail-order private dick kits, badges to pass myself as a seamus. The Hardy Boys. Even Nancy Drew and the Bobbsey twins. Ellroy. Chandler. Leonard. Shadow figures on a wall.

My friend Jesse.

My friend Jesse going into the lake in his car.

My friend Jesse in that great and gleaming thing, just washed in summer when we'd go to Canyon Falls with friends to jump into the evenings.
--- Dear, this is a hole a filling-in

Nitrates in gunshot residues.

No arms protruding from his body in the traditional way.

No mark.

Noir
It means black

Nouns, problems with.

Nylon in textiles.

Nylon stockings, Liz's, mother's, future obsession with.

Nylons.
--- Dear this is a star a stair an escalator up

Obliteration of documents.

Organic poisons.

Origin of fires. Firespring: gasoline and glitter, fuselage and fuel.
--- Dear, this distance is a balding scalp, a bridge, a deadened nerve, long-distance dedication, a sort of stroke and reassurance

Packaging materials.

Palmprints.

Paper identification methods.

Paper, marks upon.

Perspiration.

Phenolphthalin test.

Phenomenon of deceleration comes into operation when a car has to leave the road and heave its hit into a pole or a row of shrubbery or a picked-out blackberry patch, a picket fence with tiny doll heads on pikes epoxied on the tips of each stave-top. Your father died today, you tell the stewardess on the plane to elicit sympathy, peanuts, cheap brandy, gum, and kisses. Since then your dreams have each been glass heads that end in slivers across rug-clad floors. It is safer to be strapped in a plane, inclined up into clouds that coat the fuselage with ice crystals that glitter in the sun. What is a smash-up but a scattering of seeds across vinyl seat and open window. The engineers and accident-experts familiar with how much difference it makes to decelerate instead of to stop abruptly are nonetheless surprised by how well this works.

Photoflash bulb.

Photographs, distortion in.

Photographs of ice holes clipped from the paper. Everything goes down to the bottom of the lake: Christmas trees after the holiday. Cans. Glass. The occasional car or body. Snowmobiles. Stampsand leftover from processing iron ore.

Pigment, in hair. In paints.

Pinched vein.

Playing Billy Idol's "Dancing with Myself."

Pollens.

Predestination.

Predisposition
for cheer
for depression
for high-school dropping out
for mental illness
for prison
for submersion
for typing-class breakdown flip-out
for violence
for wonderful recovery or action
--- Dear, my dot and line, my meant and mint, my meal and morning moan

Quiet,
as necessity
as omission
as speech
--- Dear this is a sieve discarded in a river

Radial cracks in glass.

Radiant heat.

Radiate.

Radiation.

Radio,
amateur
amplitude modulated
as a metaphor
as a method of communication
frequency modulated
ham
how it's shot right through us all the time
schematics

Rayon.

Red birds in the sky at sunset. Or are they bats? And why do they wheel like that like they're going to bomb the sun?

Remainders after long division.

Remembered evening with Liz that went so badly.

Ring.

Ringing sound.

River delta means spread and source.

River means of course the Mississippi.

River means Sturgeon also, means wading in up to your waist. Means smelting in the early morning light.

Rock Tumbler. Fingerprinting kit. Cash counterfeiter. Fake books that are safes. Rocks that hide keys. Magnets stuck to the bottoms of cars. FM-wavelength bugs. Penlights.

Rouge.
--- Dear, this is a tributary

Safe,
burglaries
construction of
methods of attacking

Salmonella.

Scene: old paper sacks with stacks of papers. A box of tampons.

Scopolamine.

Sealed envelopes.

Seamen, locating.

Search, of crime scene
of persons
wall

Seconal.

Secondary electron radiation.

Secondary evidence.

Secretors.

See how it was like back then.

Seizure,
epileptic
of drugs
of evidence

Self-image.

Self-incrimination
in dreams
in interrogation
on paper
over and over

Self-portrait.

Sequence of folds
in paper
of lines

Sex offenses.

Shipwreck.

Silk. Skidding distance.

Slippage,
bullets
radio
tires

Smoke, around bullet holes.

Smoke, significance in fire investigation.

Spermatozoa.

Styrenes.

Sweat.

Syringe.
--- Dear, everything has a source if you can find it, some point of emanation

Test tubes filled with rust; polished copper fragments; tape with bits of dialogue; floorboard, box of Raisinets.

Thallium as poison.

The female lead: absent curve of shoulder into neck. Absent bit of Liz.

The principles of criminal investigation suggest a how rather than what.

The whole hill is riddled through with mines. Quincy Mine has 96 levels. Water has stoppered up the earth to the 6th level, which you can still go in and tour.

This is algebra. A way of understanding.

This is what this is about. This is a grain. A Sliver. Center.

Though it's warm out now I think of winter. Feel like being kept inside by weather.

To put my name in char. To tattoo it all on anything with an arm to take it.

Tools and how to use them. This is a story told by men and taught to men. This is not a critique of that, exactly.

Traffic reports of accident deaths on the radio and in the papers and on the nightly news that comes in two languages often carry the phrase "collided with a fixed object." A large tree, an abutment, an ice gap. A boulder, a stray break-up phrase, a wiretap, a brick house with a telephone line creeping down the back-that is what is meant by "fixed object," and next to a head-on collision it presents the greatest peril to a moving car.

Trails.

Trajectory of any car on any road.

Trajectory of bullet.

Trajectory of car with Liz and Jesse
in descent
in the moment of impact
just post-crash
just pre-crash
presently
still life with
that car was blessed with the premonition of the crash before they left the house
before they knew me or were born

Trifle.

Trophy buck heads nailed onto wood. Mr. Kurtz. Men's heads on pikes. Doll heads just bought from stores in bags.

Truth.

Truth serum.

Twist of rifling.
--- Dear, I'm sorry this could not be more

Uncover.

Undercover work.

Urine.
--- Dear, this is a door

Vehicular accidents
Instigation of
Investigation of
Types of

View camera.

Vinyls.

Volatile solvent, ignition of.

What if Jesse swerved to avoid a fish wrapped in paper on the road.

What if Jesse swerved to slide a hand below the lining of a dress.

What if, Jesse.

What if Liz had her hand on the radio dial that was barely lit.

What if Liz was turning up "Blue Moon, Revisited" by the Cowboy Junkies. What if she liked what she found dark and there. What if she was looking up at the nude moon in the sky.

What if, Liz.

What if they were found that way.

What if we.

What if we could solve this song for X.

What if X.

What is a brother without arms.

What is a crane called in to pull to winch to haul out a car from a scar.

What is a lock of hair in a hand. This is the truth right here-I clipped a lock of Liz's hair after she and Jesse had been pulled from the lake. Is this sick. It was new. Still in motion. I was on the scene. I knew the undertaker. I knew there was an answer. Some way to possess her sliver, some heart some part of her.

What is a night before Christmas when the kids are downstairs and everything is quiet, unbroken like the surface of a lake.

What is a remembrance of the body.

What is a way of saying a thing. What is a good reason.

What is a witness to a snowmobile on open water then going through.

What is air blast and mine collapse.

What is all this coming to. What is a seed. What is a mint or mint leaf.

What is always.

What is always going.

What is always going to the emergency room.

What is an end to question. What is lit. What is unlit. What is cut. What is uncut. What can be split, and what cannot.

What is an obsession.

What is ankle bracelet. What is bra and garter and tether and extra-sexy dream.

What is apex, apogee.

What is awful, actual, sad.

What is blame but expulsion. What is excommunication, the ritual deporting of the heart to Canada.

What is candlelight (only a little) between friends.

What is closer than they appear. What objects are in mirrors.

What is cost. What is a coast, so far from home, preamble to the ocean that you've never seen.

What is economics.

What is electrons spinning around a nucleus.

What is elicited in confession.

What is else. What is watching reporters on the scene. Flashbulbs. What is the usual story in the paper.

What is ex is X.

What is excised, exorcised. What sometimes gets excited.

What is gasoline on stop-sign light.

What is gloss on lip. What is an invitation for a kiss.

What is hair scent left in a baseball hat.

What is his. Is theirs. Is hers. Is ours. Is echo and again.

What is if.

What is just a word. Word and worm. Men and end. Lime and sparkler light.

What is left.

What is lens is lesser. Is __________. Is excised, is at least.

What is less than fire.

What is less than fire is less than X.

What is less than fire is more than I can take or speak.

What is life beneath the ice.

What is light leaked all over the new water when the ice recedes.

What is made of fire. What is burn in air. What is stop and drop and roll. What is a telephone reduced to slag in a blaze. What is an accelerant.

What is magnesium lit in air.

What is motion.

What is motivation. What is mine. And what is in the mine.

What is nape of neck. What is strand of hair. What catches bits of headlight light as we pass by cars. What is condensation on the inside of eyeglass glass.

What is nightlight glistening on skin.

What is not. Is black on white. Is etch and mark and mar.

What is not so clear. What is circumspect.

What is obliterated.

What is oil spread along the tanned blade of a shoulder.

What is on a stretcher cruising in the moonlight towards the emergency room.

What is one winter defined by barn collapse and 290 accumulated inches of snow.

What is pale is fire and cannot be safely touched.

What is punishment.

What is rear view mirror.

What is relapse.

What is sawdust, converted into a tower of flame.

What is sawdust dropped from the third floor stairwell and lit from the bottom.

What is seven wounds on a chest.

What is short but bright.

What is simple is regret is lack of act.

What is terrified eyelid light.

What is the origin of all fires.

What is the outline of an angel made in snow.

What is the voice of dogs in night. Or the reverse, too, I suppose.

What is there to do. What is there. What is there anyway to say or see.

What is this is hers.

What is this is hers is here on the page.

What is tracks through snowbank leading to the lake.

What is unanswered.

What is what always would have meant.

What is white on white.

What is wrong.

What is X an anodyne a coin.

What is yours as much.

What yes would have meant to me.

What you've heard enough about by now.

Who is a good question. Funny it's only being asked once, here.

Why is it that I need to know.

Why this is important.

Writing, age of
importance of
order of
scent of
--- Dear, this is a mouth, a month, a moth emerging from, a cloth across the brow, a going-North

X as concatenation & conflation.

X as brother.

X as father.

X as loner. X as lover.

X as mother, myth.

X as queen Liz. As previously established.

X as token. Torn coat or turncoat.

X as unknown.

X, necessity of herein.

X, used in algebra.

X, used safely to recover memory.

X-Axis

X-Ray diffraction.

Yes. And yes.

Yes they caught him the guy who ended Crisco's sister. What did that mean or help. What good could come from that. What is a good. You can trade it on a black or darker market. Again, what recompense.

You see.

You'd think the mines that go all throughout the hill would weaken it.
--- Dear, this distance is now all I have, a wine-dark sea, a solo moan, a haunting

Zipper fragments
all over the back seat
as emblem
of forever
of forever-ever?
in bottom of car underneath the dash
mixed in with glass
puzzle-like
teeth, scattered
tongue, detached
worn like a necklace
worn like a totem
--- Dear, I hope that it is enough