And then I waited for what I
wanted to know
And when I did not receive what
I felt was my due
I simply just did that which I could
I created it.

Now I know what this means.

Thank you.

“Do not make eye contact, for you will find only an eyeliner-traced Charybdis, ready to take you down. Their lips are glossy like wet succulent plums that promise you nothing but sleepless nights. Their pale slender fingers are adept at snatching heart-shaped fish hiding behind rib-shaped coral. Do not offer to buy them a drink; water is their element and they will never be thirsty for anything you can afford. And, when it comes to mermaids, if you have any sense at all, you should not look upon their MySpace page. Their top 12 were filled by bulky GQ mermen ages ago and this is only the beginning of your despair.”

Flotsam floated around me, the ruin of some ill-conceived plan to sail as fast as the sun so it would always be today and never the day she said “so long.” I swim towards the island, pursued by seven storms, each with a woman’s name.

I push into the tavern, a gritty sheen of sand covering my face with a five-o’clock shadow. The journey’s just a dream by now: desert, ocean, beach, an eruption of green and Texas accents, heat like lonely nightsweats. The chairs here are solid and storm resistant, but I can’t trust them yet. The mermaids circle in schools, smoking cigarettes pulled out of purses crafted from the tanned hides of former lovers. Their tails are disguised beneath boots and I can already imagine their heelprints in my back.

Suddenly you’re standing there, poise of a queen with a kingdom on her mind and a neck strong enough to make it look easy. You start speaking to me and I wonder if there’s been some mistake because can’t you see my name spelled out across the beach in broken masts and tattered sails? You flash a smile and I want to take it home with me to look at on rainy days. You’re talking to me like you’ve actually put some thought into it and you’re not just killing time. I thought I knew cruelty until I saw the stretch of your jeans over the curve of your hip. I don’t know the color of your eyes yet because I still believe the sailors.

Now we are moving through the crowd. You cut through the room like the prow of a ship, chin angled up, never slowing down, like you’ve got shit to do and it can’t wait, even if you just need a cigarette. I’m a short distance behind, walls of water closing in. “Excuse me,” I say to the crush of bodies. “Please excuse me. I still smell of shipwreck.” But no one is listening.

Outside, mermen beg to light your cigarette and their Zippos wane in the glow of your hair, a sudden sunrise on the water at 10 o’clock at night. Our talk turns to mangos, which grow in plenty on this island. I want to pick them all for you and put them at your feet. Something swirls in your eyes and I hear sailor’s cries but I’m already sinking.

And somehow, the saltwater tastes sweet.

As you can see, this is all Jodi’s fault.

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Photos
v.2

I spent five years filling up a photo album with a house, a car, a dog, a set of tools, a nice dining room set, and you.
And you in your wedding dress
And you smiling by the SOLD sign
And you raking the leaves
And you looking at me like I was forever.
I was an amateur photographer, to be sure
Shooting from the hip
Sending up a prayer that when the camera winked
Something would develop:
Be they happy accidents
The smeared blur of a smile
You on a camel, framed by a pyramid
The montage of a child’s face, my eyes, your nose
Or the sepia toned hope of you and me wrinkling in a sunset forty years away
But now I wonder
Did someone else borrow my camera for the last five years?
In the economy of betrayal
One word is worth a thousand pictures
“I do” bought two thousand moments
“Divorce” took half of them back
It’s an expensive word
It cost a house, a car, a dog, a set of tools, a nice dining room set, and you.
And you packing up your wedding dress
And you putting up a FOR SALE sign
And you leaving the rake
And you looking at me like I never meant anything
And it cost you me.
All those photos, just gone
As though I had spent the last five years taking pictures of the sun.

It’s like a poetry slam that happens online. You listen to each performer and then vote for the one you like the best.

I am gripped by a spiritual shuddering, caught inside my own wake.
If I would resist less, make my soul an aetheric arrow, flow upstream,
I would find Me.
A Me surfing the crest of Time.
A Me moving so fast it strips the paint off stars.
A Me that is already There because it itself is the destination.
A Me with liquid, hungry boundaries.
I would embrace that Me, pull its lips to my ear and finally hear what I’ve been trying to say all this time.
But right now I am a pail of water in a steel box:
Passenger 10C on a carefully prescribed arc,
Moving faster than I ever have while sitting completely still.
Three buttons give me the power to summon
A tiny sun, a tiny wind, or a tiny repose.
To see, to feel and to dream with the seatbelt securely fastened, small and safe.

Hidden somewhere ahead of me is a
Flickering matrix of dials, maintaining my fate.
They taught me that complex machines were required to yoke destiny.
Without buttons and dials the plane could land in Xanadu, missiles could land on the Civil War, and I could become anyone.
The gauges were necessary to measure progress.
So I bought into the buttons and the dials.
And I bought them with my blood.
An umbilical snapped, memory faded and I unlearned that ultimate potential, life in all directions, chaos, is easy.
Anywhere and Anywhen slide loose behind a thin amniotic membrane where my body used to breathe water and my soul used to breathe…used to breathe…
Where my soul just used to Breathe.

Outside the window, the clouds form the angular logos of their new corporate sponsors.
The people flying the plane weren’t just taking us,
They were taking everything.
Frantically, I reach out and press a fourth button I hadn’t noticed before and I summon a tiny point of contact.
A woman arrives and asks “Can I help you?”
I say “You can do more than that: You can get your hands dirty with me. Get me under your fingernails. You can stop lying and expecting me to lie back. You can drink my tongue and every other part of me and I will do the same for you. We can walk naked and give everything we see a new name. And don’t apologize if you end up killing me; I was made to explode and make a mess and stick to everything.
“Barring that, you can show me where they’ve hidden my sun, my wind and my dreams. I’ve checked way too much baggage onto this flight, so I know they can’t be here. While you’re at it, you can take back all the dials because I’m not measuring up, I’m going Up.
“Barring that I’ll proceed to one of the four exits (the nearest of which may be behind me) and get off the fucking plane.”
MAYDAY EJECT EJECT MAYDAY EJECT EJECT
…

She sits down next to me.
Her hair is not red.
Somehow that’s okay.
She pulls out a dog-eared copy of The Little Prince.
I know what pages she has marked.
“First time flowing?” she asks.
“Yes, yes it is.”
She holds my hand and my heart although they both stain her.
We’re going to slide up and through the plane now,” she says.
I nod.
There is a splash.
I stop holding on to my breath.