From Word Problems by Ian Williams. Published by Coach House Books in 2020.
But the object would not say to the subject, Object
verb subject. There was no fight. But subject went
to sleep facing the unfinished PAX closet, turned off
turned away, in other words, from the object’s objective
case pronoun. The object wanted to explain the construction
object verb subject is a kind of grammatical impossibility.
Also personal. Three-fifths personal. But subject’s personal pronoun
or inner child should not take it that way. Some phrases
literally could not be said.
The syntactical problem
could be traced to the object’s possessive pronoun mother,
another noun, whom the object suspects was unable
to verb pronoun as more than an object. Object’s maternal friend
said, Another noun verbed pronoun as best as pronoun could
though pronoun wanted to be verbed differently. And that literally
and figuratively were embattled.
The object began to repeat
the sentence in question to the reflexive pronoun
in the PAX mirror. As a kind of question. Until wax dripped
from the eyes. As a kind of statement, the subject floated
into the room wearing an heirloom fur coat with red lining
red silk lining I can tell you now that it’s over
because you may never otherwise touch the inside.