At the end of a sentence a period, a full stop. Peer into its darkness, a celestial sky so dark nothing is visible save the darkness itself.

Or it’s some kind of cave, an inscrutable Lascaux, a dim basement. Jazz musicians crowd beside bison hunters. Hear the shimmer of the cymbal and the erotic bleat of the saxophone, the clink of mouth-bound martini glasses, the soft murmur of warriors.

Now lean closer, look as if through the aperture of a microscope. There’s an entire city. A single swart cell. An inkwell. The birthmark of the sentence. An insect whose legs my brother removed.  You raise your head and look out at the room. Black ink from a silent movie gag circles your eye.

—Gary Barwin