Grey Day In Miami, and: The Risen, and: The Heavens

GREY DAY IN MIAMI / Denis Johnson Our love has been. I see the rain. Nothing is abstract any more: I nearly expect one of these droplets loose tonight on the avenues of wind to identify itself as my death. Now love is not a feeling like wrath or sadness but an act like murdering the stars. And now the limp suits drying out on the railings of hotels, and the sorrows drifting like perfume, and telephones ringing in the darkness and milk tears shining on rouged cheeks. While nearby sighs the sea like God, the sea of breath, the resolute gull ocean trembling its boats. 208 · The Missouri Review THE RISEN / Denis Johnson How sad, how beautiful the sea of tumbling astronauts, their faces barred and planed and green amid the deep. I see them dancing in the kindness of a broken answer, by the light of the jukebox, by the light of our fiery homes. We are that sunset. The angels envy us. Hurts like a mother burns like an evil flame— Black knives, the angels stand up inside themselves. The Missouri Review · 209 THE HEAVENS / Denis Johnson From mind to mind I am acquainted with the struggles of these stars. The very same chemistry wages itself minutely in my person, it is all one intolerable war. I don't care if we're fugitives. We are ceaselessly exalted, rising like the drowned out of our shirts . 220 · The Missouri Review ...