What Things Are Made Of

Where Does Joy Come In?

19 Where Does Joy Come In? It sneaks through the cat-flap when you’re busy microwaving a beefand -cheese burrito. It slides down a beanstalk from another galaxy. It overflows your clogged commode. It breaks into your triple-locked, burglar-barred life, just before you can bolt out the door. how will i know it when it comes? It will be waiting in your bed when you slink home after getting your bum drummed, your cashews chewed. It will be the floating pickerel in a grove of sugar pine. It will wear a mask identical to its real face. It will skate up and ask, “Are you a man or a Mouseketeer?” what will it do for me? It will clean your whole house and sleep with you for a veggie burger and a mango smoothie. It will substitute fly-fishing for playing Dudgeons and Drag Queens with your friends. It will stop you for speeding, and write you a ticket to Maui. It will charcoal on your driveway the phone numbers of lost loves whom you should call. what if i don’t want it? what if it hurts too much? Then it will build a body cast around you while you sleep, and pump the plaster full of Novocaine. Then it will bang on your door late at night, screaming, “No fire!” Then it will take you nude bungee-jumping, stoned out of your tree. Then it will make an international star of a nobody who looks just like you. 20 how does it leave? It leaves in a taxi between 1 and 4 a.m. It leaves with a swish of satin, clunk of bowling balls, screech of caissons, and twitter of bats. It leaves—between the scent of brimstone and mountain azaleas— Two scarlet feathers floating in a breeze. ...