Michael Palmer

1943 / Manhattan, New York City, New York

What I did not say

What I did not say was that within this tiny book, this 1" x 1" x 1" cube, there was but one word. It was not even an unusual word, rather one people once used all the time as a call or a greeting, mornings or evenings, or else to express a certain delight, for example in the color of a lover's eyes or the grace of his or her form. A word, then, with no specific referent or single meaning, one often simply meant to intimate concord or mutual understanding, agreement or solidarity. This word had been banned from public utterance for many years, but it had subsequently, as often happens, worked its way back into common parlance until the point where the ban itself became a subject of ridicule, and those who had imposed the ban were reviled, where formerly they had been cheered and celebrated. Is it possible to conceive that this almost invisible book, with that one word in it, may have been responsible for this turn of affairs?
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