Yesterday, 04:02 AM
Miracle
While driving to El Paso, I started seeing double. Now that there
were twice as many cars, it was hard to focus, though the purple
mist hanging on everything deserves some blame. The hills were
wearing drag again: in San Francisco, even the fog spilling over
your shoulder is florid, aggressively gay. I could see through them
like fata morgana. Exhausted, the world had become disembodied,
and in so doing placed me in terrible danger. Except for a Carl’s
Jr’s pointed obscenity, there were no visible stars. I was sailing
deep into the beast’s dark, moonless belly. It was a beautiful night.
It should be less cliche for me to say my skull was full of beauty, or
that I found another fork of lighting in the road. The slumped rope
of a dead snake’s body disappeared before my headlights; it had just
been a branch. The lightning tore that oak in two, I said aloud, though
it was only me out there. It tried to get a good look at its heart, and
somehow in the process, poor fella lost a limb. Now you’re being
dramatic, I said, in a raspy voice I hardly recognized. I think that’s
really beautiful, a different voice replied. A new pair of black tassel
loafers smoldered in the trunk. My head felt radio. I kept driving.
Two days before the wedding, I take them out to try them on. We have
to stop at a cobbler’s to get the insteps widened. There's two parking
spots and both say HANDICAPPED. He takes one look at my duck
feet, shakes his head, has a birthmark shaped like Texas, says I’ll give
you these for fifty. My best man laughs so hard he knocks over a pocket
square display. The air is briefly full of flowers. It’s you I’m marrying.
While driving to El Paso, I started seeing double. Now that there
were twice as many cars, it was hard to focus, though the purple
mist hanging on everything deserves some blame. The hills were
wearing drag again: in San Francisco, even the fog spilling over
your shoulder is florid, aggressively gay. I could see through them
like fata morgana. Exhausted, the world had become disembodied,
and in so doing placed me in terrible danger. Except for a Carl’s
Jr’s pointed obscenity, there were no visible stars. I was sailing
deep into the beast’s dark, moonless belly. It was a beautiful night.
It should be less cliche for me to say my skull was full of beauty, or
that I found another fork of lighting in the road. The slumped rope
of a dead snake’s body disappeared before my headlights; it had just
been a branch. The lightning tore that oak in two, I said aloud, though
it was only me out there. It tried to get a good look at its heart, and
somehow in the process, poor fella lost a limb. Now you’re being
dramatic, I said, in a raspy voice I hardly recognized. I think that’s
really beautiful, a different voice replied. A new pair of black tassel
loafers smoldered in the trunk. My head felt radio. I kept driving.
Two days before the wedding, I take them out to try them on. We have
to stop at a cobbler’s to get the insteps widened. There's two parking
spots and both say HANDICAPPED. He takes one look at my duck
feet, shakes his head, has a birthmark shaped like Texas, says I’ll give
you these for fifty. My best man laughs so hard he knocks over a pocket
square display. The air is briefly full of flowers. It’s you I’m marrying.
