she releases the handbrake and
asks, where are we going
but she already knows the answer -
it does not matter.
for you cannot ask google maps the way to the ocean
and you can never be lost when you are navigating by the moon.

i slide a mixtape into her 2003 honda cassette player
as we whir down the highway.
she starts singing, full-throated, to a song she has never heard.
no, they are singing her song badly
but she does not mind,
will show them how it goes.

when we get to the beach she pulls out a bottle of red and
an old book of mine,
one i'll never read again, pristine,
she breaks the spine,
writes in the margins
love notes transported through space and time
to a boy who would never see them
would grow up instead to preserve all these books
like an old man, buffing his 1958 electric blue cadillac eldorado
that he never drives.

day turns into moonless night and
she takes my uncertain hand,
walks us to the shore,
placing my feet as if prepared to sidestep
a shard of broken glass
or a jellyfish.
it is so dark, i do not know what is sand, sea or sky
but you know the way, being pulled by gravity.

you are tipsy so i let you sleep on the way back,
my dreamy copilot by my side.
i plot a course home
through the black rolling hills and doug firs.
i am notified of the moon, full beam,
pinging me from just over the horizon,
bringing this landscape into spectacular silhouette.
i smile and turn the computer off.

said the senior alter boy to me,
  you are timothy, timotheos, fearer of god
and as i stood there in the sacristy,
steeped in frankincense,
blushing in my crimson cassock,
all the while concealing something sinister under my tongue,
i smile and nod yes i am.

but it was not an act of timidity
when i stole into the organ loft,
invoked the forbidden toccata
and the heavens poured a great flood
upon this forsaken old fishing town
(it was climate change, jesus fucking christ)

no, these hands are not afraid to perform the black mass
or the white mass,
summon devils or the holy ghost,
or shoo them both away.
why then do they play me pianissimo
when i am clearly marked, con furia, ecstatico, impetuoso?

when veronica drove into the back of our ford escort
the sound made the night sky turn white,
all the leaves, newly summered, fell from their trees,
the damp air suffused with gin, scorched rubber, regret
and the moon laid the shore to rest.

inside, children running gleefully around
in a drama of their own, of innocuous cruelty,
in an instant were scattered wildly,
shook to the ground dead

while the adults, savoring wine and
chunks of pineapple and cheddar cheese on cocktail sticks
felt a momentary prick of years gone by,
of bromelain tenderizing mouths.

but i am safe,
having concealed myself behind this emerald-ruby satin,
a floor-length curtain collected in some dusty, forgotten corner of the house,
the taste of rainbow sprinkles and hot tears still on my tongue,
and i wonder
did i create this madness from inside here,
like the wizard of oz
while i was longing to be home?

. . . . in which i am visiting a small island off the coast of hythe called kokoalka. it is a also a mountain. for reasons that are not clear i am hanging from some macramé attached to a skylight window over an abyss which i believe to have been knotted by my father. i feel secure in this knowledge even though my situation is dire, and i am eventually able to climb free, though the window feels impossibly narrow. i am now to ride in a cycling tournament but i have no shoes. i go to the store but am frustrated by the service . . . they do not seem to understand the urgency of my request because the tournament is already underway . . . .

i am growing into myself

C - He - Mc - Al - Li:
unaltered

walking past, i check my ass out in the mirror
looking full and flowing
and i think: i love you,
for the first time.

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