thief etched on the wall tied to the cross. He joins the
believer reverberating on a Masonic pyramid under the calendar. A model citizen
speaks.
“What are you doing wandering in these climes? I thought he poured you into
paradise.”
“He did, but the old urge to steal laid hands on me.”
“What did you get, a halo or two?”
“I stole an ‘I’ and an ‘R’ out of spirit and made it spit. I lifted the ‘U’ out of soul
and made the day sunny. They got me for blasphemy.”
“You’re not banished. You’ll be on the highway again stuffing the missing letters
up their muffling asses.”
A mockingbird pecking on a transformer explodes and bursts into flame. The
feathery spotlight introduces a dead crow in the gutter. Don’t squirrels, pigeons,
possums and raccoons own the corner on gutter death? Crow brethren pick out
eyeballs and stuff acorns for autumn bargaining. The spirit may be fire. I’m on
automatic pilot. In my vacuum, wistfully I see things clearly, x-ray clearly.
Miss Lydia, the reader and advisor, has moved her business. What spirits roam
about now? You just can’t take the windows with you: were the wraiths transported
in satchels by Steuben or lured from the windows by plastic incognito. Kiln fire
breathes life into glass, air fuels fire, spirit cyclic. I remember a psychic who had
neon that read PHYSIC.
I recall a summer morning and a woman in an evening gown running in baby
steps from Lydia’s den. She returns to the scene of the blaze like a hose-eyed
arsonist. She sees me and tries to run faster. Stopping at a bridge, she stares down at
the dearth of passing cars. “Why do you follow me, masked man?”
“You are in my path.” Jogging in place, I feel strangely like a high school
hurdler.
“Don’t look at me.”
I gaze down at her bare dirty feet as she drifts back to the lower road. I need a
bronze-mirrored shield. I almost mention Tonto and Dan Reid.
“The moons are in flight, goose stepping from the advancing meteors,” she
shouts.
Her eyes gnaw through my sanctuary. There’s blessed relief as they shift again to
the headlights. I meet her eyes. Her hair is made of bittersweet chocolate rosary
beads. A gust attacks, caresses and tallies the dull sugar begging bumps.
“What do you say of the end, masked jackhammer?”
“Glass, I’m certain.”
“A riddle for little old me! The rain conducts the fir tree crosses chiming. Chew
on that!”
She cuts me off after I offer a “Touché.”
“My lineage is regal. I wear a mask too. My origins are desert dunes. I can’t
locate the ice palace of my sandy birth. Arrows fly from murderous sockets. My
wounds are deep. Lydia, her cards and crystals, do not help. She has swindled,
extorted and deserted. I should jump into the Detroit moons.”
“I know a man who will make you armor and build you a cathedral of
aluminum,” I offer.
“It has to be ice.”
“Where is the stained glass in an ice cathedral?” I ask.
“Hold this rose, hold this rope. I have traveled with many circuses,” she purrs. In
a straitjacket wink, she is gone. The Thunderbird passes without a joust and she sits
in the backseat, nose bent against a window.
The road opens a sore and grabs my foot. Ankle twists but I stay suspended.
After the rip, the adrenalin joins in my chorus. Rip and click. I am beyond pain. No
stopping now, I’ll be a cripple. It feels as though my foot is missing: amputee
emotions reversed. Oh, this shell is weighty and tedious! Spirit sleek, streamlined
soul, Rucksack Man scat-sings words that need translation: skit, scat away heaven
and purgatory.
St. George’s Church, soul extended to an altar full of candle Corning but no
graveyard. Stained glass, soul’s coloring book, joins the motes and fills with funeral
Masses, within the lines of course. Flames tickle the images. Where is the
mausoleum? Let the soul observe the rusting of the anchor. There are no worms in
sermons, caterpillars. With a cemetery near, you can hear them on the anatomical
Disney tour. Study those windows—put your ear to the stone. You fill them full of
death, Father, sex and religion feast on it. Gobble up my other foot, cruel, kind,
macadam. George, drive that sword into my heart. Extinguish me, let the sun and
moon copulate on the altar of icy aluminum, animate the windows and melt glass.
Resurrect me long enough to swing the thurible, sniff the incense. Send the tide after
the diamonds. E.A. Poe carved a poem in a window at U.V.A., got him expelled. I
carved words I found on a shithouse wall about fire and ice in Plexiglas behind the
presser in the prison laundry, didn’t gain me freedom. Maybe a diamond is the rub! I
used a 3-caret Coke bottle chip. Dry ice, there’s a tangent to pursue! Willikers, the
bone yard has moved to the plot next to the driving range. Golf balls hung up
between two stones—kinetic sculpture. I saw a piece of bronze once, gowned man
one foot off ground, hands clapping. Vulcan subtitled. Golf balls, graveyards, souls
laughing in the rough emptiness. All ash into cash, dust into spongy lust. Hand-
blown bouquets for your toasts.
Nothing matches the frenzy of my fantasy. I’m peaking. I know I can go no
higher without death. Flying along my breath is quiet. It’s not enough. I dreamed of
more. It’s better to avoid the Anderson jalousies. What awaits me? I’ll pass through
the rooms like a vapor, filling my pouch with jewels, watches and cash. The
inhabitants lie in their armored slumber. I may shortcut through their dreams. I must
keep the last short circuit out of my mind: handcuffs clicking, the siren. Maybe
they’ll all be there, sweet shop Medusa filling her bags with ice cubes, filling
Thunderbird’s pockets through his fly. Vulcan goes through the trash and the
refrigerator emptying full cans of beer and soda on the floor and the Emily flies buzz.
Bushy-tailed crows sit on the bedposts. A mirrored master bedroom is a port in
storm. In the living room, El Greco’s Toledo blinks. Vulcan looks through it with
magnifying glass, flashlight and tweezers: Cathedral at any cost. The child Jesus
wears a torn straw hat and the farm boy dons a crown of hemlock thorns.
Ivy grows from the parole officer’s eyes as she preaches. The psychiatrist asks if I
feel anything. At the dining room table, a simple sot sits in Canada Dry armor,
Tiffany Limited fifth of vintage rum. He studies the suggested white fill line around
the shot glass. The ones in Paradise are more like fishbowls without a guppy,
aquarium tub ring. The whisky flows from the tall top of Rucksack Falls, chilly and
mild!
The foot drags now. My tools are gravity’s revenge. Here is the house I’ve been
casing for a month. I am bound to my wounded stump like a cross. Smashing the
biggest and best Anderson window, I fall, relax and wait for the wailing and the wrist clicks,
hoping Houdini is lurking.
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