Crush (6 page)

of fire, hands of air, hands of water, hands of dirt. Someone's doing all

the talking but no one's lips move. Consider the hairpin turn.

17

The motorbikes are neck and neck but where's the checkered flag we

all expected, waving in the distance, telling you you're home again,

home? He's next to you, right next to you in fact, so close, or. . . he isn't.

Imagine a room. Yes, imagine a room: two chairs facing the window but

nobody moves. Don't move. Keep staring straight into my eyes. It feels

like you're not moving, the way when, dancing, the room will suddenly

fall away. You're dancing: you're neck and neck or cheek to cheek, he's

there or he isn't, the open road. Imagine a room. Imagine you're danc-

ing. Imagine the room now falling away. Don't move.

18

Two brothers: one of them wants to take you apart. Two brothers: one

of them wants to put you back together. It's time to choose sides now.

The stitches or the devouring mouth? You want an alibi? You don't get

an alibi, you get two brothers. Here are two Jeffs. Pick one. This is how

you make the meaning, you take two things and try to define the space

between them. Jeff or Jeff? Who do you want to be? You just wanted

to play in your own backyard, but you don't know where your own yard

is, exactly. You just wanted to prove there was one safe place, just one

safe place where you could love him. You have not found that place yet.

You have not made that place yet. You are here. You are here. You're

still right here.

19

Here are your names and here is the list and here are the things you left

behind: The mark on the floor from pushing your chair back, your un-

derwear, one half brick of cheese, the kind I don't like, wrapped up, and

poorly, and abandoned on the second shelf next to the poppyseed dress-

ing, which is also yours. Here's the champagne on the floor, and here

are your house keys, and here are the curtains that your cat peed on.

And here is your cat, who keeps eating grass and vomiting in the hall-

way. Here is the list with all of your names, Jeff. They're not the same

name, Jeff. They're not the same at all.

20

There are two twins on motorbikes but they are not on motorbikes,

they're in a garden where the flowers are as big as thumbs. Imagine you

are in a field of daisies. What are you doing in a field of daisies? Get up!

Let's say you're not in the field anymore. Let's say they're not brothers

anymore. That's right, they're not brothers, they're just one guy, and

he knows you, and he's talking to you, but you're in pain and you can-

not understand him. What are you still doing in this field? Get out of

the field! You should be in the hotel room! You should, at least, be try-

ing to get back into the hotel room. Ah! Now the field is empty.

21

Hold onto your voice. Hold onto your breath. Don't make a noise,

don't leave the room until I come back from the dead for you. I will

come back from the dead for you. This could be a city. This could be a

graveyard. This could be the basket of a big balloon. Leave the lights

on. Leave a trail of letters like those little knots of bread we used to

dream about. We used to dream about them. We used to do a lot of

things. Put your hand to the knob, your mouth to the hand, pick up the

bread and devour it. I'm in the hallway again, I'm in the hallway. The

radio's playing my favorite song. Leave the lights on. Keep talking. I'll

keep walking toward the sound of your voice.

22

Someone had a party while you were sleeping but you weren't really

sleeping, you were sick, and parts of you were burning, and you

couldn't move. Perhaps the party was in your honor. You can't remem-

ber. It seems the phone was ringing in the dream you were having but

there's no proof. A dish in the sink that might be yours, some clothes on

the floor that might belong to someone else. When was the last time you

found yourself looking out of this window. Hey! This is a beautiful

window! This is a beautiful view! 1 hose trees lined up like that, and the

way the stars are spinning over them like that, spinning in the air like

that, like wrenches.

23

Let's say that God is the space between two men and the Devil is the

space between two men. Here: I'll be all of them-Jeff and Jeff and Jeff

and Jeff are standing on the shoulder of the highway, four motorbikes

knocked over, two wrenches spinning in the ordinary air. Two of these

Jeffs are windows, and two of these Jeffs are doors, and all of these Jeffs

are trying to tell you something. Come closer. We'll whisper it in your

ear. It's like seeing your face in a bowl of soup, cream of potato, and the

eyes shining back like spoons. If we wanted to tell you everything, we

would leave more footprints in the snow or kiss you harder. One thing.

Come closer. Listen . . .

24

You're in a car with a beautiful boy, and he won't tell you that he loves

you, but he loves you. And you feel like you've done something terr-

ible, like robbed a liquor store, or swallowed pills, or shoveled yourself

a grave in the dirt, and you're tired. You're in a car with a beautiful boy,

and you're trying not to tell him that you love him, and you're trying to

choke down the feeling, and you're trembling, but he reaches over and

he touches you, like a prayer for which no words exist, and you feel your

heart taking root in your body, like you've discovered something you

don't even have a name for.

Driving, dogs barking, how you get used to it, how you make

the new street yours.

Trees outside the window and a big band sound that makes you feel like

everything's okay,

a feeling that lasts for one song maybe,

the parentheses all clicking shut behind you.

The way we move through time and space, or only time.

The way it's night for many miles, and then suddenly

it's not, it's breakfast

and you're standing in the shower for over an hour,

holding the bar of soap up to the light.

I will keep watch. I will water the yard.

Knot the tie and go to work. Unknot the tie and go to sleep.

I sleep. I dream. I make up things

that I would never say. I say them very quietly.

The trees in wind, the streetlights on,

the click and flash of cigarettes

being smoked on the lawn, and just a little kiss before we say goodnight.

It spins like a wheel inside you: green yellow, green blue,

green beautiful green.

It's simple: it isn't over, it's just begun. It's green. It's still green.

Close your eyes. A lover is standing too close

to focus on. Leave me blurry and fall toward me

with your entire body. Lie under the covers, pretending

to sleep, while I’m in the other room. Imagine

my legs crossed, my hair combed, the shine of my boots

in the slatted light. I’m thinking
My plant, his chair,

the ashtray that we bought together.
I’m thinking
This is where

we live.
When we were little we made houses out of

cardboard boxes. We can do anything. It’s not because

our hearts are large, they’re not, it’s what we

struggle with. The attempt to say
Come over.
Bring

your friends. It’s a potluck, I’m making pork chops, I’m making

those long noodles you love so much.
My dragonfly,

my black-eyed fire, the knives in the kitchen are singing

for blood, but we are the crossroads, my little outlaw,

and this is the map of my heart, the landscape

after cruelty which is, of course, a garden, which is

a tenderness, which is a room, a lover saying
Hold me

tight, it’s getting cold.
We have not touched the stars,

nor are we forgiven, which brings us back

to the hero’s shoulders and the gentleness that comes,

not from the absence of violence, but despite

the abundance of it. The lawn drowned, the sky on fire,

the gold light falling backward through the glass

of every room. I’ll give you my heart to make a place

for it to happen, evidence of a love that transcends hunger.

Is that too much to expect? That I would name the stars

for you? That I would take you there? The splash

of my tongue melting you like a sugar cube? We’ve read

the back of the book, we know what’s going to happen.

The fields burned, the land destroyed, the lovers left

broken in the brown dirt. And then it’s gone.

Makes you sad. All your friends are gone. Goodbye

Goodbye. No more tears. I would like to meet you all

in Heaven. But there’s a litany of dreams that happens

somewhere in the middle. Moonlight spilling

on the bathroom floor. A page of the book where we

transcend the story of our lives, past the taco stands

and record stores. Moonlight making crosses

on your body, and me putting my mouth on every one.

We have been very brave, we have wanted to know

the worst, wanted the curtain to be lifted from our eyes.

This dream going on with all of us in it. Penciling in

the bighearted slob. Penciling in his outstretched arms.

Our father who art in Heaven. Our father who art buried

in the yard.
Someone is digging your grave right now.

Someone is drawing a bath to wash you clean, he said,

so think of the wind, so happy, so warm. It’s a fairy tale,

the story underneath the story, sliding down the polished

halls, lightning here and gone. We make these

ridiculous idols so we can to what’s behind them,

but what happens after we get up the ladder?

Do we simply stare at what’s horrible and forgive it?

Here is the river, and here is the box, and here are

the monsters we put in the box to test our strength

against. Here is the cake, and here is the fork, and here’s

the desire to put it inside us, and then the question

behind every question:
What happens next?

The way you slam your body into mine reminds me

I’m alive, but monsters are always hungry, darling,

and they’re only a few steps behind you, finding

the flaw, the poor weld, the place where we weren’t

stitched up quite right, the place they could almost

slip right into through if the skin wasn’t trying to

keep them out, to keep them here, on the other side

of the theater where the curtain keeps rising.

I crawled out the window and ran into the woods.

I had to make up all the words myself. The way

they taste, the way they sound in the air. I passed

through the narrow gate, stumbled in, stumbled

around for a while, and stumbled back out. I made

this place for you. A place for to love me.

If this isn’t a kingdom then I don’t know what is.

So how would you catalog it? Dawn in the fields?

Snow and dirty rain? Light brought in in buckets?

I was trying to describe the kingdom, but the letters

kept smudging as I wrote them: the hunter’s heart,

the hunter’s mouth, the trees and the trees and the

space between the trees, swimming in gold. The words

frozen. The creatures frozen. The plum sauce

leaking out of the bag. Explaining will get us nowhere.

I was away, I don’t know where, lying on the floor,

pretending I was dead. I wanted to hurt you

but the victory is that I could not stomach it.
We have

swallowed him up,
they said.
It’s beautiful. It really is.

I had a dream about you. We were in the gold room

where everyone finally gets what they want.

You said
Tell me about your books, your visions made

of flesh and light
and I said
This is the Moon. This is

the Sun. Let me name the stars for you. Let me take you

there. The splash of my tongue melting you like a sugar

cube…
We were in the gold room where everyone

finally gets what they want, so I said
What do you

want, sweetheart?
and you said
Kiss me.
Here I am

leaving you clues. I am singing now while Rome

burns. We are all just trying to be holy. My applejack,

my silent night, just mash your lips against me.

We are all going forward. None of us are going back.

FIN