Nod House Quotes

“We became a tribe recalling the founding
two. Ducked in thru a door, we ate food
from Reunion, island in an ocean some-
where, we forgot which, ducked in, not a
trace
of them there. . . We clutched bodies, rubbed
each other's limbs, less in love with skin than
the memory of skin, skin's image, all the
more
extolling skin. . . Sexed insinuance, nixed
insistence in retreat. . . Would-be what-if,
what
if. . . We wanted it back, big promise, portent,
apocalypse,
urgency, plummet,
plunge”
― Nathaniel Mackey, Nod House

“Cnthonic porch. Side-
real garden. Sugar met salt, salt
sugar. Black cat collarbone spill. . .
Warble a worm in our throats,
we
talked birdtalk. Talked against birdtalk,
night, neck made of string. Night was asking where to next. . . Nowhere.
Nothing. Nothingness. Gnosis put
salt
on our tongues.”
― Nathaniel Mackey, Nod House

“Hers to be his to be hers ad
infinitum, smoke smudging
the
bell of her throat. To what had
been or might've been her
thoughts migrated, cloth wall
he
pressed his hand against, he of
the indelicate embrace.”
― Nathaniel Mackey, Nod House

“Nod house turned into shout
house. In the shout house memory
said shut up. It said silence,
misery said amen, the mule's
head
meant my stubborn lungs. . .
I stood
imagining I fell back dreaming,
stuck tongue stuck in my jaw
broke
my jaw”
― Nathaniel Mackey, Nod House

“They sat cross-legged on
the floor, short of lotus, lay back
between table and couch. In the
upset zone known as not
yet
there they reconvened, she
unexpected harmony's ghost,
another she recondite solace's
regret. . . They sat on the
floor
sipping herb as we looked
on,
incense an androgyne funk,
flesh crevice, book of anabatic
recess”
― Nathaniel Mackey, Nod House