Exhibit A: sixteen and I'm taking
the Long Way. There's this ally, right behind
the Baptist church on Maple, where you can
climb right up under some yuppie's garage
and blow your mind. I go there and I think
of all my possible lives. I steal a truck
and bust through to Mexico, stop in a barrio
and find myself a sweet little brown
lipped girl, her hair thick like licorice and eyes
burning coal. Something simple and sweet and
cheap. Dark heavy smoke climbs up to
the alley, and I'm stage left, New York City,
blood-drenched and sweat-stained,
slinging my guitar like Jesse James- a real outlaw.
After the show, I bang some groupies
and railroad track my arms.
Confession: I think about sex in
Sunday School. It's cheaper than sports
and simple like slit wrists. While the
slick hair sits up front and preaches "love
thy neighbor," I think about loving
my neighbor's daughter, then snap. I stand up
tall, raise my awkward hands to heaven, stretch out
two scrawny fingers and speak in tongues
they'll never understand. They pray. I resist. (It's the
punk thing to do.) I reach God in spite of their
religion. Not in their church, but in my
records: buried deep in the grooves. She delivers me in power
chords and liberty spikes.
Exhibit X: nineteen and it's independence
day. There's this spot, just west of town
where you can see the sky light up from the
ditch bank. It's there we fill a silver Camry with
thick gray smoke and breath deep. It's there
I see God face to face and She asks me: (God has
questions, too) What's the deal with the
Sex Pistols? The Clash were so much more
revolutionary. And I think, "Why wouldn't
God be a punk rocker?" And when you think
about it, the Clash really are the better band.
And then it hits me: Maybe I'm not the one
who missed the point.
Maybe I'm Reading Too Much Into This
I pulled a book from the bottom shelf and scanned
for words that might mean the gentle slip of your hand
as it grazed my upturned hip. I looked for words
to feel as heavy, or slick as the cords
of hair I parted and pulled, sliced my way through,
thick as desert nights. I lit a match while you
slept, let it tickle page and paragraph, my fingers damp
as the flame licked: deliverer, annotated, death camp.
I thought you woke once- the way you turned, then turned
again; the way you sighed as books and bedsheets burned.
August
I wake first, curl into
your rounded back. Tight fisted
and fetal. It's
slow here and time
has no use for me,
so I wait a while before peeling
back the sheets, then
make my way to the
bathroom sink.
My face looks different in the dark,
somehow, and I wonder what it is
you see when our eyes meet,
heavy and damp, or
how you love, like the rest
of us, what you cannot
know. I imagine things like earthquakes,
and what I'd do if you suddenly
died, and the night breathes
down my neck, thick wet
heat. I
switch on a light, then flick
it off again.
I wrap myself in the white
sheets, try to find the warmth
left behind, then pull my arm
across your side, and wait
for your breath to break this
silent night; but it's slow coming and
I wonder, again, what I'll do
when the earth finally quakes.
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