Soul Contracts
“no one saw the moon that bled in my mouth
or the blood that rose into the silence.”
–Neftali Ricardo Reyes Basoalto
Mosquitos leach my naked chest.
A single frog calls for a mate.
Scent of citronella fills the patio
as a weak ward.
It’s quiet now. Outside.
And in that quiet, I try to be present.
Try to remember
the events of the day, what transpired
outside of my mind:
Early on, I’d written. And I’d read.
The heat had been oppressive at 9 am
but both the warmth, and the chill, were yours.
I crawled along the ground at the edges
of my mother’s yard, sprinkling the ground
with cayenne pepper—like a salt ring, perhaps—
around the perimeter of the fence (not for spirits,
though, against the family of skunks that sprayed
our dogs a week ago). It’s overgrown,
outside that fence, and thorns ripped
at my arms, a blister formed, trees pressing
almost too close against my frame; I had to shimmy
face to face with privacy. I had to climb a tower
of barbed wire, precariously balanced against posts,
pushing (breaking) smaller limbs, a bag
of plastic bottles over my shoulder
like some diabolical Santa. I shook
them, one by one, spreading their acrimony
along the base, the burnt sienna painting
a boundary, the slight breeze, apparently,
carrying it to my body, since, halfway done,
my face began to burn with a hollow, dull
pain. But throughout, I barely registered
any of it; I was swimming your words in my head.
…and the yard seemed to be spinning.
I had to hurry, because I had a wedding in Lexington
to rescue, on the morrow–their DJ having canceled
four days in advance; the officiant had done but one
ceremony; the coordinator was on her first, simply
an intern for the groom’s business and young, so very young;
the family barely listened, faces buried in their phones
(including the bride); the groom was growing agitated
at how slow the rehearsal was going. My mind
was a thousand light years away, but the city
continued spinning, so I stepped forward and let my voice
come from my belly—and they listened and they
thanked me, again and again, for making “lemonade
of the week’s lemons.” I didn’t tell them
how right they were.
…how, now, the country was set spinning.
I debriefed the debate with my sons over the phone–
had avoided the angry susurrus of CNN issuing forth
from my mother’s bedroom, at home: One candidate
supposedly infirm, the other a child and a lying felon.
I pretended I hadn’t seen the correspondents shift stances,
so dramatically, with their opinions/coverage of the Left—
while a box had been floating in the lower right corner
of the screen: Coming Next: Kamala Harris (for the record,
I would welcome her, but the theater was overwrought
and the plot was too obvious and the manipulation
would have overwhelmed me)
…if the sun wasn’t still spinning.
I made calls while I was driving, while filling an empty tank, replacing
milk. I kicked the tires. I changed my clothes into something less restricting.
I signed two more events in the coming weeks. Agreed to spin a pool party
on the Fourth (the Country Club first time calling). Agreed to DJ another
local business owner’s renewal of her vows. I applied to 10 identical jobs
with the state (tax specialist positions, of all things, prevaricating
my native language was actually numbers). My mom and I watched a show
about an alien pretending to be normal as we ate honeyed salmon
and a baked potato.
…and all the while, the universe was spinning.
So here I am now, with a glass of wine. It’s 2 a.m. and I’m sweating
in nothing but athletic shorts. Listening to the silence (a blessed silence).
Trying to make this sound less…depressing. Knowing the cosmic fabric
does not set its spin cycle to my dirty laundry. But overflowing
with the sensation, that…everything keeps going. Everything
keeps spinning—How?—does it all keep spinning, when I am here,
and you are there–frozen between one breath and the next, and my mind
and my heart in synchronization with the serenade of Saturn’s rings,
forty-eight hours like phantom numbers floating erratically in the air,
like some Netflix show only I can see
…while the hands on the clock continue spinning?
In the dark—I’m wishing it were winter, the scent of pine and petrichor
joining steam rising off my chest—up and out and into a quietus
of crisp air after a hot bath in the night—it’s a secret occupation of my spirit
to do—when it’s the right season, when its the right moment, the right time
for such to occur. But that seems my curse: the right thing, at the wrong time,
until the right time makes the right thing tremulous
and wrong. I believe in perfect
timing; I believe, in fact, it is all right now.
That every Me exists in the same moment, that they stand around me, now,
laying on hands. That every story is always happening—all at once. And this is
how we know (some of us know) when we meet Them. This is how we know
(some of us know) where the story goes. Before a single word has been written.
Before a single kiss has been taken. So we watch our feet as they move forward,
Damn the torpedoes, and full steam ahead,
because we know there is a greater lesson
our souls had already decided
in the space before we were born.
So we are choosing what we were always choosing.
And loving every sweep of the story, every ounce of the beauty, though
we know we might be losing.
But damn, if it isn’t confusing.
And fuck, if it isn’t
bruising, and hells
that it isn’t
yet.
