LOOKING AT AN ASSEMBLAGE BY MARTY LOVINS / CREATED AND GIVEN FOR MY 81ST BIRTHDAY / 9 AUGUST 1945

 

LOOKING AT AN ASSEMBLAGE BY MARTY LOVINS

CREATED AND GIVEN FOR MY 81ST BIRTHDAY, 9 AUGUST 1945

Time stops the moment this bomb hits this clock.

The clock wobbles too. The circle dangling

below the clock is part of the clock. Nagasaki time.

Born in the instant, I am. We are.

Conditioned already. There is a mirror

in the lower right of the assemblage.

Karen and I are watching TV, at dusk.

I look over at the wall where it hangs,

in dusk light. Wait, Karen. Stop.

The TV. I walk over to the piece,

Untitled by the jeweler, Marty Loins,

and take a picture with my smart phone.

That’s me in the mirror. Self-portrait

at the moment of my birth, 9 August 1945.

In the after-time, the after-birth,

the morning time, sunlight hits the circle

more directly, casting three shadows

on the wall. Air movement, people

walking by, into the kitchen, or,

on their way to the bathroom, cause

the circle to move, slightly. You

may not notice. Another thing.

The synesthesia. There is music in this piece.

You’re a musician, maybe. Something like music

right here. Only my jeweler knows. He, too, is a musician.

A part for the whole. Synecdoche.

Oh! That’s the Taj Mahal

in the one photo, and a class of graduating

students from Yakima, in the other.

There’s more, yes. The dizziness.

Jim Bodeen

12 July—30 July 2026