I’m on my stomach in a side chapel at St. Margaret’s. My hipbones press against the floor, gas moves through the side of my gut, my hot cheek grinds on the stone. My crying is choked; I curl into a ball and clench, an impossible shape. I put myself in your body. Its frequency is so high it heaves upwards. You need me as you did at first.

Into our most intense union the opposite feeling enters—disorder, the strangeness of what’s happening to me. Tears don’t stop but convulsions do. The more I need you, the deeper the estrangement, the stronger my desire—a defect in the movement of love.

I’m so tired of being alone. I swim through my tears to the back of my head to observe this, my crying regular as a swimmer’s breath. That retreat allows ghosts to enter: you stumble towards me as a rickety man, one leg keeps caving in; you say with complete understanding, “If it weren’t for my body I could go on forever.” We fall into each other’s arms and as we grieve I rejoice, a welling feeling of life which now even pain stimulates. I become aroused as a flat sweet odor makes my gorge rise. I promise that I will save you—your eyes darken and your face rolls away. The stench of decay spreads as I make the pledge. Your tongue is stiff as the metal clapper of a bell, purple-brown like burnt iron. Everything wasted. I witness my anguish with excitement—who would reject more life?

In my bleak monotonous weeping, I wonder at the very terms of suffering’s argument: that you are, my love is, you die, flesh is—a baffling confirmation—it’s not pain or joy until wept out as fiery tears. That outburst causes a tooth of pleasure to bite hard. Currents travel through me to the distance. When I finish crying I’m empty, exalted.

Withdraw my tears and I do not enjoy food, drink, or talk; there is no flavor until I weep again.

10

A moonless night, the snow frozen over so our footsteps crunch. A fifth of B&B stands in my pocket. The waterfall doesn’t make a sound—a huge sheet of mid-flight ice. L.’s flashlight beam finds an oval that melted or never froze and through that hole we see a black torrent endlessly spill. L.’s voice says, “It’s frightening.” Why is that, I wonder?

We share the flask, a mouthful of potent fumy syrup. I lean out of the light against a trunk, sluggish with the desire to be kissed. Cold lips, tongue fiery with brandy. His fragile heat is a dull fear embedded in deep winter. “Too bad life isn’t a cafeteria: pay first, eat without dreading the bill.”