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A R R I V I N G L A T E A T T H E B I R T H P L A C E O F P E N T E C O S T A L I S M Echo Park, Los Angeles Such was the success of all my failures: I listened at the dead-bolted door (the ecology of heaven is strange) for gush and longcadenced gladness I’d fathom not but might, by chance or chosen feeling, understand just once. Open as I am to dumb instruction. My own language heard in my own sweet time, exchanged for lamb words, spirit words, loose current, come—engender me for the dance— but I was late, already distracted by the bull mastiff prowling her fence next door in snarling accelerations and the traffic I’d drive home in. Why, if I’m sure of nothing, am I sure I’ve sinned? Something learned at birth with breathing— Original Shame, i.e.,  Barresi pages:Layout 1 5/12/10 1:43 PM Page 21 if I knew how to speak in tongues I’d be home by now, and then, too scared to stay there. Or transported? On cue, lowriders hit the bewitched light switches in their cars, raking neon purple shadows down Bonnie Brae. A spider pale as a doll’s eyelash hauled itself up, across the leaded window where hung an ancient notice from the exterminator concerning poison’s safe entry. A bass stereo boomed sex, sex, in the distance. And somewhere further off, the sloping dark musculature of the ocean rolled all comers.  Barresi pages:Layout 1 5/12/10 1:43 PM Page 22 ...

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