Cognizance Born of the Absence of Anything Else

My right eye:



The complete list of 131 words I needed to look up reading Cormac McCartney's *Suttree* below. Ed asked me, after I wondered to him if the dwarf in Suttree's typhoid fever dreams is related to The Thalidomide Kid in *The Passenger, "what do you make of the end? Is Sut alive," I replied that I think the maggot ridden three-quarters decayed corpse he saw in his cot on his houseboat was him (Ed asked everyone this question in 2015). I left out words that I couldn't find (I didn't look beyond Duck Duck Go, yo), some guessable - reck and grue, for instance - and obvious by context types of vegetation or bird or critter. Current plan: will not read any other McCarthy, nor reread other McCarthy, until I reread *Suttree* in a year or two. Current plan next novel: wait for whatever the next novel I try to find me, not me it. O, the grey tinted words are new, the white tinted words you may have seen before. My left eye below, my right eye doesn't exist any more:

Abscission	The act of cutting off; severance; removal
Accresced	To increase, to grow
Addorsed:	Oriented back-to-back, as of two animals or objects
Albified	To make white
Alembic	An alchemical still consisting of two vessels connected by a tube, used for distillation of liquids
Aneled	Annointed
Anent	With regard to, about, in respect to, as to, insofar as, inasmuch as
Annular	Shaped like or forming a ring.
Anthroparians	A human or a creature having human characteristics or traits
Architraves	The molding around a door or window
Aspectant	Of birds, fish, and animals other than beasts of prey) face to face; respectant
Aspergillum	A genus consisting of several hundred mould species
Athanasia	Deathlessness, immortality
Austral	Designating, or pertaining to, a zone extending across North America between the Transition and Tropical zones, and including most of the United States and central Mexico except the mountainous parts
Banjaxed	Damaged, ruined, smashed
Barbate	Bearded
Benison	Blessing; beatitude; benediction
Bewray	To expose; to reveal; to disclose; to betray
Blivet	An electronic signal that is normally high or on, but goes low for a very short period and then returns to high
Bloodliens	I'm guessing a deliberately mispelled pun
Butyljawed	Attended by ponderous and mercurial figures composed of colored gas and wrenching themselves slowly apart
Cacodemons	An evil spirit in a nightmare
Calcimine	Whitewash, or whitewash with zinc oxide or other pigments added, formerly used as a coating for plaster walls and ceilings
Carinated	Shaped like the keel or prow of a ship
Castellated	Furnished with turrets and battlements in the style of a castle
Cataplasms	A poultice or plaster, spread over one's skin as medical treatment.
Cerise	A deep to vivid purplish red
Chamfering	To cut off the edge or corner of; bevel.
Chiminage	A toll for passage through a forest
Claustral	Of or relating to a method of establishing a new colony, found in certain social insects, in which a queen (in ants) or a queen and king pair (in termites) sequesters itself in a small chamber and hatches the first generation of workers, nourishing them primarily on stored body fat
Clerestory	The upper part of the nave, transepts, and choir of a church, containing windows
Colloid	The gelatinous stored secretion of the thyroid gland, consisting mainly of thyroglobulin
Coprolitic	A hard roudish stony mass, consisting of the petrified fecal matter of animals
Cotyloid	Shaped like a cup; cup-shaped
Crocketed	A projecting ornament, usually in the form of a cusp or curling leaf, placed along outer angles of pinnacles and gables
Cumbrously	Rendering action or motion difficult or toilsome; serving to obstruct or hinder; burdensome; clogging
Cuspidine	A fluorine bearing calcium silicate mineral
Cyclocephalic	Condition in a malformed fetus characterized by poor development and a varying degree of fusion of the two cerebral hemispheres
Dexter	Noting the side of a heraldic shield that is to the right of one who bears it. The opposite of sinister
Diddapper	One of sundry other small grebes, as the pied-billed dabchick
Doggery	A low drinking-house; a groggery
Dosshouse	An extremely cheap hotel for poor people who have no home in a city
Eldritch	Strange or unearthly; eerie.
Execrator	One who curses and denounces
Flangeous	A projecting edge, rim, or rib on any object, as the rims by which cast-iron pipes are connected together, or the marginal projections on the tires of railroad-car wheels to keep them on the rails.
Fleering	The act of scoffing or gibing
Fustic	A common name for several plants and a dye produced from these plants
Galligaskins	Loose trousers or leggings
Glozy	A stylish, vintage-style display font
Gonfalon	A banner suspended from a crosspiece, especially as a standard in an ecclesiastical procession
Gorget	A piece of armor protecting the throat
Grumous	Adjective of grume: a thick, viscid fluid; a clot, as of blood
Guidon	A small guiding flag or streamer, as that usually borne by each troop of cavalry or mounted battery of artillery, or used to direct the movements of infantry
Halm:	The stem or stalk of grain of any kind, and of peas, beans, hops, etc.
Hematite	A common iron oxide compound
Histoplasmosis	A fungal infection caused by Histoplasma capsulatum
Hob	A projection at the back or side of a fireplace on which something may be kept warm
Hodden	A coarse kind of cloth made of undyed wool
Hoyden	A high-spirited, boisterous, or saucy girl.
Hypoplastic	An underdevelopment or incomplete development of a tissue or organ
Kapok	A silky fiber obtained from the pods of the kapok tree, used for insulation and as padding in pillows, mattresses, and life preservers
Krait	A small and extremely venomous snake
Lapstrake	A style of boatbuilding using overlapping planks
Limboid	Having a likeness or similarity to the conditions of limbo or to those held therein
Lunule	A small crescent-shaped structure or marking, such as a depression near the hinge of a bivalve shell
Lycanthropy	The supposed power of certain human beings to change themselves or others temporarily or permanently into wolves or other savage animals
Macled:	Crystallized, as in diamonds
Marcassin	French: a young wild boar
Mascaled	Composed of, or covered with, lozenge-shaped scales
Mastic	A vague term that generally refers to fast-grab glues for tile
Mauger	In spite of; in opposition to; notwithstanding
Menhirs	A single tall standing stone as a monument
Mesosaur	A group of small aquatic reptiles that lived during the early Permian period
Milt	Fish sperm, including the seminal fluid
Morling	The wool from a dead sheep
Mucronate	Ending abruptly in a sharp point
Mudra	A symbolic or ritual gesture or pose in Hinduism, Jainism and Buddhism
Muricate	Covered with short rough points or studs
Murrey	A dark red mulberry color
Nacre	(O)Mother of Pearl			I wouldn't trade you for another girl
Neap	The ebb or lowest point of a tide.
Nemoral	Of or pertaining to a wood or grove
Niello	Any of several black metallic alloys of sulfur with copper, silver, or lead, used to fill an incised design on the surface of another metal
Pannier	One of a pair of baskets carried on the shoulders of a person or on either side of a pack animal.
Paraclete	An advocate, especially the Holy Spirit
Parget	A mixture, such as plaster or roughcast, used to coat walls and line chimneys
Pauldron	The armor of the shoulder when it is a piece separate from that of the body and of the arm
Pawky	Shrewd and cunning, often in a humorous manner
Pellagrous	Symptoms of a disease marked by dermatitis, gastrointestinal disorders, and mental disturbances and associated with a diet deficient in niacin
Phagocytes	Tcells that protect the body by ingesting harmful foreign particles, bacteria, and dead or dying cells
Plastron	A metal breastplate worn under a coat of mail.
Porringer	Originally, a porridge-dish; hence, a small vessel deeper than a plate or saucer, usually having upright sides, a nearly flat bottom, and one or two ears
Portress	A female porter or keeper of a gate
Puling	A plaintive piping, as of a chicken; a whining complaint.
Purfling	An ornamental border, generally composed of ebony and maple or sycamore, inlaid in the edges of violins and similar instruments
Raddled	Showing the wearing effects of overwork or care or suffering
Radiolarians	Protozoa of diameter 0.1-0.2 mm that produce intricate mineral skeletons, typically with a central capsule dividing the cell into the inner and outer portions of endoplasm and ectoplasm
Ratchel	Broken-stone, hard-pan
Relict	A species that inhabits a much smaller geographic area than it did in the past, often because of environmental change
Rimey	To compose in rhyme; to versify
Rimpled	Folded, wrinkled, rumpled
Rufous	Strong yellowish pink to moderate orange; reddish
Scarious	Thin, dry, membranous, and not green
Selvedge	A "self-finished" edge of a piece of fabric which keeps it from unraveling and fraying
Shirred	Broken into an earthen dish and baked over the fire
Shrike	Any of various carnivorous songbirds of the family Laniidae, having a screeching call and a strong hooked bill and often impaling its prey on sharp-pointed thorns or barbs of wire fencing.
Snell	A short piece of gut, gimp, or sea-grass on which fishhooks are tied; a snood
Soffits	An exterior or interior architectural feature, generally the horizontal, aloft underside of any construction element
Soricine	Of, belonging to, or resembling the shrews
Spall	A piece of stone chipped off by a blow of a hammer or mallet
Spalpeens	A rascal: a term of contempt, or of contemptuous pity, for a man or boy
Spandrel	A roughly triangular space, usually found in pairs, between the top of an arch and a rectangular frame; between the tops of two adjacent arches or one of the four spaces between a circle within a square.
Spattled	A flat blade for stirring, mixing, or molding plastic powdered or liquid substances
Spelaean	Dwelling or occurring in a cave
Spelothems	A geological formation by mineral deposits that accumulate over time in natural caves
Spiles	A small wooden or metal peg used to control the flow of air into, and carbon dioxide out of, a cask of ale
Splo	Rotgot whiskey, quickly, poorly distilled
Squaloid	Characteristic of a shark or dogfish
Stanching	Watertight, sound. strongly built : substantial
Stobbed	A short straight piece of wood, such as a stake
Tare	Any of several weedy plants that grow in grain fields
Tarn	A small mountain lake or pool, especially one which has no visible feeders
Thooked	Short-term memory loss after eye-contact is broken
Trematode:	Obligate internal parasites with a complex life cycle requiring at least two...
Tribade	Lesbian
Triturations	The act of reducing to a fine powder by grinding
Unpawled	A broken hinged or pivoted device adapted to fit into a notch of a ratchet wheel to impart forward motion or prevent backward motion
Vag	What asshole cops do to people they perceive as vagrants
Virid	Vividly green
Withershins	A term meaning to go counter-clockwise, anti-clockwise, or lefthandwise, or to walk around an object by always keeping it on the left.
Withy	A strong flexible willow stem, typically used in thatching, basketmaking, gardening and for constructing woven wattle hurdles.

THE CLOSET

Bill Knott

Here not long enough after the hospital happened   

I find her closet lying empty and stop my play   

And go in and crane up at three blackwire hangers   

Which quiver, airy, released. They appear to enjoy

Their new distance, cognizance born of the absence   

Of anything else. The closet has been cleaned out   

Full-flush as surgeries where the hangers could be   

Amiable scalpels though they just as well would be

Themselves, in basements, glovelessly scraping uteri   

But, here, pure, transfigured heavenward, they’re

Birds, whose wingspans expand by excluding me. Their   

Range is enlarged by loss. They’d leave buzzards

Measly as moths: and the hatshelf is even higher!—

As the sky over a prairie, an undotted desert where   

Nothing can swoop sudden, crumple in secret. I’ve fled   

At ambush, tag, age: six, must I face this, can

I have my hide-and-seek hole back now please, the   

Clothes, the thicket of shoes, where is it? Only   

The hangers are at home here. Come heir to this   

Rare element, fluent, their skeletal grace sings

Of the ease with which they let go the dress, slip,   

Housecoat or blouse, so absolvingly. Free, they fly

Trim, triangular, augurs leapt ahead from some geometric   

God who soars stripped (of flesh, it is said): catnip

To a brat placated by model airplane kits kids

My size lack motorskills for, I wind up glue-scabbed,   

Pawing goo-goo fingernails, glaze skins fun to peer in as

Frost-i-glass doors ... But the closet has no windows,

Opaque or sheer: I must shut my eyes, shrink within   

To peep into this wall. Soliciting sleep I’ll dream   

Mother spilled and cold, unpillowed, the operating-

Table cracked to goad delivery: its stirrups slack,

Its forceps closed: by it I’ll see mobs of obstetrical   

Personnel kneel proud, congratulatory, cooing

And oohing and hold the dead infant up to the dead   

Woman’s face as if for approval, the prompted

Beholding, tears, a zoomshot kiss. White-masked   

Doctors and nurses patting each other on the back,   

Which is how in the Old West a hangman, if

He was good, could gauge the heft of his intended ...

Awake, the hangers are sharper, knife-’n’-slice, I jump   

Helplessly to catch them to twist them clear,   

Mis-shape them whole, sail them across the small air   

Space of the closet. I shall find room enough here

By excluding myself; by excluding myself, I’ll grow.