“Try to think back to where you were the last time you remember having it with you.”

July 13, 2010

You see: This took place long after the snow had melted and the far-flung galaxies had cooled and the jism on the bed sheets had dried to an amorphous, orange-tinged stain. It occurred after the relatives arrived and departed and drifted to their respective graves. This happened after the native grasses had vanished and the fig trees had been planted and humming birds arrived, hung in air, and continued, southward.

This came to be after a cache of baby teeth, vouchsafed in a small jewelry box in 1904, was found in the attic’s crawl space and the stew had simmered throughout the day and the red ants had gathered their dead, drown in the sudden storm, and an after-image from the camera’s flashbulb winked to our retinas from eternity then fluttered on its way. It happen after the ice cream melted and the sea wall crumbled and last night’s leftovers were fed to the cat.

And, if memory serves me, it was after the fog had rolled in and the last of the grown children had left home and the emergency exits were pointed out to us by blasé flight attendants and the headlights of cars on the highway had spun shafts of light around our bedroom walls.

I recall it took place right after you cleared your throat and after marigolds had been bestowed with their stink and the musicians left the bandstand and the comet’s near miss nearly drastically altered the tale and after the muscadine grapes had dreamed of fabled hobos and the new carpet was laid and after a millennia-dead apostle had scanned the skies for signs of the second coming then had written in his private diary, “nothing again today.”

Do you remember when I told you that I must have mislaid my salvation and you suggested that I should, “try to think back to where you were the last time you remember having it with you?”

You see: It was after the snow had melted and the far-flung galaxies had cooled– and you had asked me after love-making, “Did that help you in your search?” And I replied, “nothing again today,” and you had left me alone to scan for signs of it here on the bed sheet with the amorphous, orange-tinged stain…

There may well be no second coming, this millennia or any other.

Posted in Essays