Broken in Three Places

Somehow we were always expecting something like this, a strange wind off the Atlantic, moaning and cursing and full of old hurts, tearing the shingles from roofs and slamming birds against windows, threatening to fling us, too, into another country, where there are roadblocks and random document checks and coked-up child soldiers with machine guns cradled in their skinny arms, and still it comes as a shock, so many people given a kick and a shove and warned to move on, a pretty crappy way to die, when we might have just stayed together under a green tent of leaves.

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Any storm this terrible used to be given a woman’s name. People got the idea from high-profile celebrities who hanged themselves. We’re constantly searching for our reflections in the abyss of popular culture. Who do we want to be? It could be two people in love. It could be two people fighting. The shape could be a body. Some could even look like crowns, if only by coincidence. We’re looking at every option we can to begin to understand what’s happening. The wind is expressed by wavy lines, and the oncoming catastrophe by shadows miming the fury of black-winged archangels.

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Have you ever been in the shower when there was an earthquake? Dated a relative by accident? Wanted to eat toothpaste? Ripped off your pants while dancing? A lot of things happened yesterday. You know they happened, but don’t necessarily know the details. Mannequin arms that a buddy gave me. Heads that look like pumpkins collapsed and rotting in a field. Two ghosts discussing invisibility in front of a mirror. I see them every day. I can’t keep doing that. It’s scary, and it’s messy, the buckets there on the floor failing to catch all the falling drops of rain.