Looking for The Gulf Motel

Since Unfinished

79 Since Unfinished I’ve been writing this since the summer my grandfather taught me how to hold a blade of grass between my thumbs and make it whistle, since I first learned to make green from blue and yellow, turned paper into snowflakes, believed a seashell echoed the sea, and the sea had no end. I’ve been writing this since a sparrow flew into my class and crashed into the window, laid to rest on a bed of tissue in a shoebox by the swings, since the morning I first stood up on the bathroom sink to watch my father shave, since our eyes met in that foggy mirror, since the splinter my mother pulled from my thumb, kissed my blood. I’ve been writing this since the woman I slept with the night of my father’s wake, since my grandmother first called me a faggot and I said nothing, since I forgave her and my body 80 pressed hard against Michael on the dance floor at Twist, since the years spent with a martini and men I knew couldn’t love. I’ve been writing this since the night I pulled off the road at Big Sur and my eyes caught the insanity of the stars, since the months by the kitchen window watching the snow come down like fallout from a despair I had no word for, since I stopped searching for a name and found myself tick-tock in a hammock asking nothing of the sky. I’ve been writing this since spring, studying the tiny leaves on the oaks dithering like moths, contrast to the eon-old fieldstones unveiled of snow, but forever works-in-progress, since tonight with the battled moon behind the branches spying on the world— same as it ever was—perfectly unfinished, my glasses and pen at rest again on the night table. 81 I’ve been writing this since my eyes started seeing less, my knees aching more, since I began picking up twigs, feathers, and pretty rocks for no reason collecting on the porch where I sit to read and watch the sunset like my grandfather did everyday, remembering him and how to make a blade of grass whistle. ...