Once, I’d thought that I could cure a hangover by swimming in the cold water off my house. I didn’t know why in the hell she had written that. Her skin was as white as a sea anemone, and as soft as the pool of warm air you pass through while rowing across the bay. In green ink she had written, “There is nowhere to stand but in absence, no life but in the fateful light.” She was cute, and now a Christian. But no jolt of clarity came I never got past the inscription. I had thrown it in my pocket before going out. The woman who used to love me left it on my bedside table before leaving me. This morning I had found a book by Wendell Berry flopping in the bottom of my bed like a cold hot-water bottle. I’ve tried reading poetry in hopes that the sludge of alcohol would melt into the atmosphere. Once, I had grabbed the back of the radio that was chained to the bed of my hotel room in Rock Springs, Wyoming, hoping, as the voice said, that “the blessed power of Jesus” would fill my soul. I’ve tried other hangover cures besides haiku. This was the beginning of an extraordinarily bad day. I felt like I had a spider digging into my inner ear, and a fur-bearing animal trying to claw its way out of my stomach. I sat on the green bench in front of the Pioneer Home with my wallet sitting in my hand, as useless as a ticket for a ferry I had just missed. The worst of it was I didn’t remember if it was stolen or given away. I had botched my seventeen syllables, my money was gone, and my only credit card was missing.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |