Bringing the Shovel Down

Because

54 Because Because longing is an aviary. Because longing is a greenhouse and there are more greenhouses in the body than all the names of god if you lay down in a damp field and the stars are ravenous and the moon howls and the shimmering labia of a thousand who-cares-their-names lean in quivering on their slick stems to smell you and you, well, I can promise you many things: there is a fire exactly seven states away stopping, at this second, its rage, and tilting its head to hear the thunder of your mostly untouching while three children wearing onesies slip out the back door sooty-faced into the arms of their wailing family. That’s one. An unhatched bird is singing inside its shell. Another? How about the rat crawling slick from the snake’s gaped mouth and its tiny claws clicking the dirt in concert with the mandibles re-hinging themselves, both of them looking your way? Both of them licking their lips? It is like this, that when you and you rise from the flattened grass, which moans, several species of squirming things surface in your outlines and the roots of elderberry bushes writhe. A galaxy of butterflies lifts from a tree in another country and the tree sighs. A dog devours ice cubes and digs fourteen holes looking for it-can’t-remember-what. Steam comes out of a nun’s mouth. The lady hocking candied nuts sweats gay pages-2.indd 54 10/18/10 11:20 AM 55 into her sweets. Yellow jackets orgy in the pear’s honey lather. Your teeth burn. gay pages-2.indd 55 10/18/10 11:20 AM ...