Three Pieces
Ourselves, a Resurrection
For Gavin Cross
Do you remember the church built three times upon itself we visited in Italy? How, with each descent, the stairways narrowed, until we stood in that dank room, surrounded only by stones the color of ash? Nothing grew there, in that church beneath a church, and the only sound filling the space was our quick intake of breath and exhale. Standing together in that darkness we both still felt alone, so we pointed to the tops of arched walls, and said that surely, in a time before, they might have touched the sky. But it was not the sky above us, and we were not interested in the gilded ceilings and flaking frescos of the life of Christ. For on this journey we have both buried something of ourselves. The tombs make mirrors of our eyes. Even so, we are not Rome, buried deep with tunnels engraved in an untranslatable language. We are Berlin, where every hill is just the rubble of something destroyed grown over.
The Body of Saint Sebastian is Riddled with Thirty-Four Arrows
Walking the streets of San Gimignano, I didn’t notice the nine towers left standing. Instead, I searched for brass and wax to seal my name. But nothing is indelible. As a child, I learned that morning glories bloom only for a day. And the scent of rosemary grows stronger after it is crushed. Last night, you asked me what will happen if my tumor grows. “I’ll just forget sooner, die faster,” I said. After that, the room should have fallen silent, except here we are never alone. So you poured us drinks the color of September and we swallowed, silence begging: do not to think of such a thing as death. In these months, I have learned the weight of grief and its transference. You are not the one so enamored by the flame that you do not feel your body turn to dust. So to break the pause I said, even Pisa is reinforced with steel rods and cement foundations, else it too would fall.
Lover
When you left in the dark as I slept, you must have taken certain things with you. The kitchen shelves look emptier. There is more space to the right of the bread. When I went to make tea in the still-dark morning, two ripe bananas were missing. I thought: how strange a thing to transport back to your world from mine. But then I remembered that you are always surviving, that even when you moved in, your boxes were never unpacked. And so the bag of imported cheeses and half-eaten container of hummus that disappeared are as essential to you as any other thing: a winter coat, or parcel of salt, in Dostoyevsky’s Russia. There is little proof you were here today at all: a damp towel hanging on the bathroom hook, one extra glass in the sink. How deep, this fear, to leave something of yourself behind? Every day you look at the note I wrote, years ago, on the inside of your wallet. It says to turn fear into faith. But we both know my notions of faith are sometimes too obtuse for you to grasp. That only under blankets the color of sunlight can you feel my devotion. And even that is okay, so long as I remember that the only home we can ever share is one in which every window opens.
