Devil Has Questions
Tell me: What, at the end, is sharper, having learned better than to be
so guileless, so rosy, or the instinctive way your skin now buckles at those birds
for being the most tempestuous things singing in the river’s fog? Precisely
what doesn’t lessen you to the point of gutting? When you espy a sack
of white landscaping rocks? Chocolate-looking moons? The fever your lover’s hand
imbues you with, without even touching? Sloppy still is lethal, right?
So what do you think will save you? I am taking notes. I am learning
how to worry about what you can’t control, starting with all
the things now burning on the meso-level. I greet them like a wrecked gazebo
greets the rain in a field awash with gray goose dung. At a distance, it may look
like shelter, but there’s nothing really for you there except to stand drenched
in the skin of your best suit. Believe me; I know best and worst are the wrong spectrum
of words for describing what is in fact your only. I know what error is. Or do I
mean terror? Hell, whichever. Let me just state for the record: I stand by every last misuse.
* * * * *
Devil Vexed by Such Grand, Meandering Duende
Asked to name your greatest failing, I’d say it’s that you’re weak and will not change. It’s not
the view you offer of your options: some days you either take off your hat or let the dog bite you;
some deliver one more canto enchanted by whiskey and figs. I’ve watched you at gatherings,
posture of a balloon stuck on the ceiling, guided by whatever the breeze does to its string,
your face like it caught a whiff of flesh drift in from the larkspur. You thought it takes a lot
of emptiness to be a good person for so long it was too late when you found out it was wrong.
OK. It’s never too late, just very, very hard. Maybe that’s why you tend to envy
painters who attune their awe to things trying to be tender but brutally:
wind bending trees, fur of prey limp beneath their devourer’s weight. I am as grateful as you
someone decided these are beautiful. It confirms: anything can culminate in devotion. A flower.
A fever. Someone smothered in red clay. You should know by now, some things I can accept
in my sleep. Some it pains me to cherish so openly. The way I heard you confess
you didn’t even have to know an object’s origin to adore it, just suspect — whether gently
or with disgust’s abrupt flourish — it was something once received by the rally of her hands.