“Explain Jesus.”

  

could be a gust in some god, but no, barely

                                                            even wind’s breath blows.

cricket, cicada, tree frog thrumming throughout the long throat of night.

                        here miracles might occur

overcaffeinated tremors in my hands.

                        precious, disappearing things

coffee thickened feel of—I mean,

                                                           my desert of a tongue.

yes, too many cigarettes.

moisture has seeped into the loosestrife, looseleaf

                                                            pages; they feel almost, but not quite, like

.......skin.

                        (now do you know where you are)

I touch them—as if it were—yours.

                        all the shapes desire can take

almost, I can almost hear a

                                                            heart      beat      cling—but it isn’t mine.

my blonde leg hair catching orange

                                                            porchlight, their reddish shine.

scuffed leather shoes, cut-off shorts, tshirt in tatters.

cigarette half-smoked down.

again, again, again bloodshot the ember

                                                            eye blinking languidly & again—

                        astonishing this earthliness

                                                beheld by such light

a lone leaf spinning in an orb spider’s web, snared

                                                            as Gnosticism says soul by body is.

                        if hidden, what is will

                                                become clear

(meaning this is as allegorical as a skylark’s silence if caged.)

                        how you understood in the end why

inaudible, water’s slow slosh in the glass.

                        we could not make it work

wishing it were wine.

                        despite love, despite everything we had going

. . . you know, I really did.

dew falls from oak branches like rain.

                        (come shining)

goddammit, do. 

                        half-spoken, half-whispered response to your fingers, tongue

lung cancer’s courtship nearly at an end. 

                                                                                    (I love you)

exhaust, exhalation, echolalia of South Texan night.

                        as many tejano stations on the radio

                                                as there are ways to die

is that that damn train or just a giant tin whistle, ghost or angelus, an angel’s

trumpet,

                                                            or La Llorona, una lechusa, a whippoorwill.

tell me how could nobody have told you surely as light shines in your eyes

                                                            death has a body here.

no, no novena I know of can pray mortality away, I’ve already asked—

                                                            you could always try St. Jude.

& what if the story was that one summer when for a little while

                                                            we walked this earth together.

                        (you wore the scent of a smoker then)

of all the love letters written—you probably never got them all—

                                                            if you read this, I hope you can hear me

.......breathing.

am I still listening for that one untranslatable song?

                        yes I am still trying to

                                                decipher the human hieroglyph

earlier, fog blew through the backyard like white sheets hung on a line.

                        it looks like two men

                                                twined in each other’s arms

no, before that taste of black water

                                                            taste of bitter olives, I tried to pray.

                        (as we struggled to make meaning

                                                where maybe there was none)

more perishable than fruit, more breakable than glass

                                                            our hearts were, are, their wayward lines . . .

before I light another cigarette,

                                                            I already told you, just days ago, Jesus.  look:

in an obscure book of dreams, it is written, twilight

                        “is not the true time of darkening, rather

                                                the chance for incredible light”

stubbed out the butt.

                        even if light’s failing feels like dying

                                                between the inhale & the exhale

                                                                                                            yrs, love

that smashed smoke smell.

 

for Michael Garza