Genesis
Last night the thunder was biblical, giant pockets of sound to be held up in the curve of one’s arms. One point I woke and then I wake again. Thunder blossoms in a way that reminds my untrained ears of bombing. I am awake enough to trust that bombs are unlikely even as they are not impossible.
E says “we are everywhere more than they are everywhere.”
The mountain in me
“I’m country-less” J says and laughs. There’s an arch his neck has that leads straight into his eyes.
“Because when I came here and I claimed asylum, I gave up - - - - - . But I don’t have a U.S. Passport, I don’t have a green card, so I’m not from America. But I love my country.”
I have not lived anywhere but this specific landmass, been through it and above it and never yet underneath it. I sit across from J and I ooze country from my fingertips. Mountains from my shoulders, rivers from my elbows. I am self-conscious in my geological lactating.
Desert Dwellers
He believes in djinns, J does. With eyes that are welling with water, he thinks of beings with eyes of flames.
Sliding into his arguments, I wonder about the licking feeling that comes when you are in rashness, about lust, about discovering what is meant by one’s deep belly.
I wonder how hot exhaled wind would need to be to wipe out cities.
Afghanistan
After MOAB was dropped, none of us heard from J for a long time.
His body wasn’t in the same country as the weapon and its pieces, and the black earth it left behind, and the peals of sound unheard by those who could no longer hear because of the bomb. The bomb was dropped, without warning, on Thursday.
His body wasn’t there but when we were drinking tea he told me the rest of him was.
Here he is being offered type of tea after type of tea after type of tea, but he knows he only wants one. It is not the kind being held out to him.
Novels
It takes four generations to create a story. One to write, one to read for the first time, one to teach, and one to be taught. Any one person can pass through all four stages.
I am more aware of being in love with E. In loving him, I feel my body roll, my mind soften. I open like a flood. There are rainstorms across my body.
Love has a lineage where the thunder blossoms.
