How my Mom Met Jesus

I can hear the shuffle of cars on the highway behind our house. Nights have found themselves alone at my mercy more often than not these past few months. Spring is like that to the system of a man. It makes time harder to waste when there is so much of it. So I listen. I listen to the humming of the refrigerator, people changing lanes, the fizz in my water. I listen and I tire. But I don’t sleep because my dreams are all too warm and I wake up soaked with them. It is this that gives me such an angry point of view. It is this that makes me call for my mother.
I read a story once about a woman whose baby was still born. She brought the baby to the Buddha and begged him to bring the child back to life. He told her that he could only breathe life into the baby if the woman could bring him a grain of rice from a house that had seen no loss. So, this woman lugs her dead baby from village to village knocking on doors and calling for those who have never lost anyone. It takes time for her to realize that no one escapes the pain of grief, that death is our common exit, no one gets out alive. She gives up her search, buries her baby and takes up with the Buddha.
My mother died almost ten years ago and I still knock on doors. Cars pass. My mouth runs dry. My feet ache. I don’t sleep. So I knock on doors. I know the Buddha’s answer is right. I know the Buddha like others know Jesus and when I think of what the Buddha is asking me to give up, I understand better why Jesus was killed the way he was.

One Nights

The bus station in Burlington is nothing more than a dinged up trailer and seven hard, white plastic chairs. There is only one bus that comes this early so we skip the small talk. I thunk my bags down and nod instead. He knows what I mean and nods back: travelers' code.

Back in the Super 8 room Tess is scrambling her pants over her thighs. I am smiling against my pillow. My drool is kissing my cheek. I am grossly out of practice. Tess is not. The morning after "what the fuck did we just do" aways feels the same. In the dining room Tess's waffle gets stuck to the iron. She is poking at it. Swearing. Tess is awkward. I am nostalgic.

The first leg of the trip is a cross cut through the forest. The view whips by seamlessly, peaceful: dangerous. Vermont is made from the kind of dirt you enjoy having stuck in your nails: meticulously ragged, recycled, whole grain. Vermont is a great big lesbian.

I have never bedded anyone who smelled like roasting turkey. I have never been kissed with Stove Top stuffing. I have never been in love. I have never been home.

I picture Tess back at her dorm stammering an explanation of friendly benefits. My guts drop. Are we accountable? Does what happened at Super 8 stay at Super 8?

No one back home knows that I am on my way back to them today. I have no working phone. I can't warn them. I don't want to. Adulthood sits in the same seat as rebelliousness. They look alike. I am constantly confused.

The bus stops in Northampton. There is a girl there whose hair is short and sticking up. I wonder how Tess got here so quickly. But, it isn't Tess. I am relieved but guilty for it. I distract myself with long tugs on my shoelaces. They are frayed at the end. I have abused them.

The bus stops in Springfield. I am almost home. There is a twenty minute layover. I get a medium iced mocha from Dunkin Donuts. I don't drink medium iced mochas. I drink small hazelnut regulars at room temperature. I don't want to get back on the bus. I want to call Tess to ask her to meet me back at the Super 8.

I don't. I get back on the bus. I sit in my seat. I drink my medium iced mocha.

Connecticut is dimmer than Vermont. The highways are traced with wooden fences. I have always seen them. I have never known who put them there. The sign on the side of the highway says that Suffield is ten miles away. Tess is from Suffield but she is still back in Burlington. The girl that isn't Tess is here. My medium iced mocha is here. Tess is not. What happens in Super 8 Motel stays in Super 8 Motel.

The bus station in Hartford looks the same as it did when I left it. The same people are having the same conversations. Anxiety like this is maniacal, scorching. Points from opposite ends meet where they shouldn't. Time over laps. In dissociative episodes almost anything is possible. Maybe I never left. Even time travelers have wives.

Tess has eyelashes that won't quit. They go on for days. There are three moles on her left cheek above her dimples. I have named them. Her entire mouth is smooth. It tastes metallic, bullet proof. I want her to be unborn. Leave it to the broken to hate all they desire.

My feet hit the pavement before I realize that I have even stood up. The ground in Hartford is harder than in Burlington. Everything in Hartford is harder than Burlington, even the pigeons.

angular glory

beneath the layers of fat on our chest
is us in all our angular glory
but no one ever reaches that far.

we can never say a word.
there is no fruit in the throat,
no base to our moans

we love god and trees and all these
but what is to love
in that which needs to be torn down?

and when we are remade,
who will remember the school girl
and will we ever want them to?