The Technology of Miracles

Kim Maltman
From:   Technologies/Installations. Brick Books, 1990.

Body of a dog by the highway; doesn't move; its head bent back, like someone on their way out the door turning to say "Yes?", not meaning to stop. As if someone had laid it out this way, spilled teacup of blood at the mouth: it mars the pavement. And how often it has been groomed! Over and over, the fur shines. Not the sort of dog to run free, to yearn after cars by the highway. Somewhere a child is probably looking for the family dog. "Have you seen our dog?" asks the child and people say "No. Try the Johnsons." We're near Chimayo of the miracles where the Penitentes carry their crosses and scourge themselves at Easter. "Yes, but they will pray for your sick child," says Theresa. Pain. The figure on the cross. A woman in the blue haze of the north Pacific mourning her husband stretched out in the aisle of the 747 amid 300 strangers. "Yes?" says the dog, "where are you going?" "Up there again", I say, "into the sky." The clouds are immense, blazing. A thunderhead is forming toward the mountains. I want to weep and there's no great sorrow to weep at.

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Kim Maltman's works copyright © to the author.