So how did I address this revenant,

this traveler from the undiscovered country,

who stared at me with dark, unblinking eyes?

I caught my breath, got on my feet, and said—

nothing at all. The words stuck in my throat.

We stood there face to face, inches apart.

Her pale skin shined like a window catching sunlight,

both bright and clear, but chilling to the touch.

She stared at me with undisguised contempt,

and then she whispered, almost in a hiss,

“You don’t belong here. No, you don’t belong here.”

She slowly reached to touch me, and I ran

leaving behind both Shakespeare and my shoes.

Mara was still awake when I arrived.

The lamp was on. The fireplace ablaze.

And she stretched naked under satin sheets.

“So, you’ve come back?” she yawned with mock ennui,

then added with a smirk, “You weren’t gone long.”

I didn’t say a word of what I’d seen.

We used to sleep in one another’s arms,

our two slim bodies interlaced like hands.

That night I held her, feeling our hearts beat—

first hers, then mine—always out of sync,

and in the dark I thought, I don’t belong here,

I don’t belong here. Slipping out of bed,

I quickly dressed, and what I couldn’t wear

I left behind—the clothes, the books, the camera,

no longer mine. What a surprise to first feel

the liberations of divestiture.

I moved with such new lightness down the stairs,

watched by mute saints and marble goddesses.

Then out the door. I closed it quietly.

The lock clicked shut. Good-bye to both my ghosts.

I made it to the county road by dawn

and hitched a ride on an old dairy truck.

“What happened to your shoes?” the driver said.

“No, better yet, don’t tell me. Just get in.”

I climbed in, and one road led to another.

And now I’m in your bar. That’s probably not

the story you expected from a monk,

delivering brandy from the monastery.

Not all of us began as altar boys.

I’ve been there fifteen years. I like the drill—

Poverty, Chastity, and Growing Grapes.

The archbishop calls my port a miracle.

Don’t tell His Grace, but I still doubt there is

an afterlife. That’s not why I stay there.

This is the life I didn’t want to waste.

STYLE

I.

Just look at me. Isn’t it obvious?

I have no style. I’m just a human blur.

On me expensive clothes look second-hand.

They droop or sag. The color’s never right.

I wear the wrong apparel to the party.

I pick the dullest item on the menu.

Each haircut brings some new humiliation.

That’s why I always loved to visit Tom.

He had the perfect sense for what was perfect.

He never wore a sports coat or a shirt

That didn’t seem exactly right—not just