on this day nothing happened---by evening there is no blood at all. and the retainers rake the sand and gather the sundered topknots. and the night is quiet as the others, and hot. (but I died here once, and my son in law---victims of the same sterile formula in the same red house while the same men looked on and felt nothing. to lack imagination is to lack humanity. and even in the last spasms of a violent death my body formed the same geometries that still I could not undo, the same geometries of peace and honor and the dutiful house. but I died because I could no longer live within the confines of seppuku's singular calm cross, within the confines of my own vocabulary too, all my rage in the quiescent saiyo. on this day I burst the stitches of my body open as they had always been bursting--that is known as revenge. my conclusion in the wake of smoke, a ghost seething against a symbol. but I died, disgusting and spectacular, like a man and not a suit of armor, nor a servant, nor a shape.)
Jaida Jones, “tsugumo,” Cinquefoil
