I'm Major Jackson, and this is the slowdown.

The depth of a man as foretold in dreams of trees.

A woman with clown-like red hair in a bright red dress,

passing coded messages to an FBI agent.

A young woman whose tears fall in cake batter she makes for her sister's wedding.

Then, at the celebration, after taking a bite, everyone begins to cry simultaneously.

I am a fan of enchantment.

The above are examples from popular culture and literature, a novella by Gabriel Garcia Marquez,

the TV show Twin Peaks, and the movie Like Water for Chocolate.

When novelist Tony Morrison has her main character described tulips that grow instantly

around his mother as fast as she plants them.

I immediately recognize this world. My family's superstitions and beliefs and charms

prepared me to exist in a world where anything can happen. Some might call it fantastical,

but in fact, for many,

magic is our orientation,

or the place where we begin as children

and never experience the rupture that befalls most

when they become adults.

For me, comics, animation, Greek myths, and martial arts films

bred a threshold of imagining that still informs how I process everyday events.

The flying that happens in Wusha classic films like the Five Deadly Venoms is the equivalent of poetry that moves from the unconscious to the conscious, from the hidden to the scene.

Today's marvelous poem reminds me we exist in liminal zones where the extraordinary renders the ordinary, visible, and uncanny,

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