I got sick of shaving
Every day
So I started growing a beard
For a while, it was technically stubble
But now it would make William T. Riker proud
Or at least smile and nod in approval
At the effort
I bought a beard trimmer at Walgreens
And I trimmed that *****
Made it nice and even
But it itches a lot
So I have to use dandruff shampoo on it when I can
I get compliments on it
From my mom and my brother
Whose beard should belong to a Canadian lumberjack
(Not my mom, my brother)



I love this beard
But I still get the urge to shave it completely
And return to baby-face

I like that thing you do with your tongue.
What do you call it?
Speaking?
Yeah, I dig it.

Karaoke night on Tuesdays was, until recently,
My only release
The half-hour drive across Lake Ponchartrain
And into New Orleans
Has become at least a weekly ritual for me
Last time I went, I saw a friend there
One who I made a few months earlier

I sang a song, and then sat down to talk to her
Catching most of what she said, but not all
My mind wanders as it always does

Somehow we start talking about dating
And soon I'm planning with her a trip to Baton Rouge
To meet her single friend
Asking her to be my "wing-woman"

But then I realize she is a little incoherent
And I have to repeat things to her, and she seems confused
She says, "They made my drink a little too strong"
And soon she is in a drunken haze
A few tears come down her face, and I sit silently for a minute
Unsure of how to comfort her
I ask if she needs to step outside; she nods

She follows me out the door, arm in mine
I slowly move outside, making sure she doesn't trip
And then we sit, and she cries
And soon I find out she is mourning the distance between
Herself and her boyfriend

I tell her about my closest experience with a long-distance relationship
About my Brazilian friend who could've been more
But then she moved, and we fell out of touch
This friend seems humored through her tears at the story

"She moved to Hawaii?" she says. "Yeah", I reply.

"Hawaii?"

I nod. We talk some more, our conversation moving into
Our mutual love of stargazing
She looks up at the cloudy sky and mentions the light pollution
And the lack of stars in New Orleans

"Hawaii?"

I tell her about the stars across the lake, where I live
And how, far enough north, you can see all the stars on a clear night
And then the DJ for the night calls her up to sing
And we go back in, into the loudness and enclosed chaos of the bar

She sings, nervous, stumbling through the songs and holding onto
The stripper pole in the middle of the little stage
She finishes the song, steps down, and we go back outside
And we sit down and talk a little while

"Hawaii?"

An acquaintance comes out and says he ordered onion rings for us
I ask if she needs a ride home, even though I work the next day
And she does too
The acquaintance says he can give her a ride
Since he's unemployed for the time being
So we go back inside and wait for our onion rings

I get my acquaintance's phone number, and ask him to text me
When he gets her home
And then I tell her to text me the next morning
To let me know she made it to work alright
She says she will

On my way back home, the acquaintance texts me: "She's home."
And the next day, at work, I get a text from my friend
Thanking me for listening to her
I replied back that it was no problem
And then I go back to finishing my closing shift

I only went on on one actual date with you
I took you to the zoo where I worked
Or more accurately, you picked me up and we went together
Since I was 19 but still a few months from my driver's license

We spent the day strolling through the exhibits I helped keep clean
You loved the Brazilian owls, since you were Brazilian yourself
You were in a long-distance relationship then
So I kept my distance
My only kiss was on your cheek when you dropped me off at home

A couple of weeks later, you texted me
And told me that you were officially single again
And that I should talk to you
But I knew you were moving soon
To an equestrian college a few hours away

I talked to you on the phone one last time
I knew you were sad that I couldn't see you
Because I still couldn't drive and you couldn't pick me up
I was sad because I felt something for you
A spark that could've been something more

We spoke on Facebook a couple of times
Then that was it;
We dropped contact
I checked on your page once, a while later,
and saw you had moved to Hawaii
And I knew then it was never going to be

I wish I had the chance to kiss you on the lips
To make love to you, to be your companion
I loved your warm personality, your brown skin
You were beautiful, even without makeup
And you moved as though you were dancing

I still think of what could've been
And what actually was
I suppose under the right conditions it was meant to be
But it didn't happen, and it probably won't

I am fine, though
I have been with other girls, had other loves, other heartbreaks
And I moved on, and I grew up
One day I will find someone with that spark again
And I can experience making love for my first time
And I can be someone's companion

Until then I patiently search
Without desperation, but with a subtle determination
My circle of friends grows
And I continue to live
With your memory to remind me
That I can love and can be loved

Dear Lord,

Forgive me for my transgressions
For they are many and sundry
You have said that it is easier for a camel
To pass through a needle's eye
Than for a rich man to enter the Kingdom of God

I was once a rich man
Now I am but a traveler, a beggar
Among these Atlantan ruins
As low now as the Negroes among me once were
Who walk past, too busy or too proud to give a second thought
To my new state of affairs, my ***** arm outstretched to them

I owned twenty-five field Negroes at one time
I saw many whipped, and I whipped many
I saw my transgressions as justifiable by Holy Scripture
I was called a "******-breaker", and prided myself as such

But pride is one of the Deadly Sins
And it brought your Wrath upon me
And upon my countrymen
As a terrible swift sword from the North
And as a Great Fire upon my land

I beseech thee, Lord, for forgiveness for my sins
For my hatred of the ***** has brought me only suffering
And pain and death to my family
My wife left, my two sons dead, my field-Negroes gone
Oh! How I wish I had not hated the *****
As I had before and as I do now

They were once property, vessels for men such as myself
To do with as they wish, to apply the lash, to love and caress
Now they are land-owners, oh! The cruelest change of affairs

"Those ****** *******, how I wish them dead!"
You might expect to hear uttered from these dry lips
But I am too tired and hungry to curse now
My throat is parched, my mouth is filled with cotton

Lord, I wish for you to take me now
And to let you decide what you wish to do with my soul
For I shall take either the Heavenly bliss I once believed I deserved
Or the unquenchable fires of Hell

But there cannot be a Hell worse than this, Lord
So now it is dark, and I am tired
I will close my eyes soon and fall asleep
Perhaps to wake tomorrow
Perhaps to never wake again

In your holy Name,
Amen

I plunge into the cold water on that warm July day
no goggles, only the loose-fitting swimming trunks
I swim through the blur of chlorine
pushing through the water
when a familiar tune I heard hours earlier traps itself in my brain
and I suddenly become weightless, a plane high above in the air

The water is pure blue sky, below me the clouds
And at the bottom the city in ruins
I take my plane and dive down below the clouds
past the blur, until the city is in view just below me

I level the bomber and let it soar low above the ground
Over the pale white shells of buildings
I remember the museum exhibit that inspires this flight

I walk through, studying the pictures and the uniforms and the weapons on display
when in the distance of the room beyond I hear the familiar tune:
Brian Eno's "Ascent (An Ending)". It brings me closer, and I move past the exhibits
at a quickening pace, past the slow browsers
glancing only briefly to read, to catch a glimpse of an object, a photo, a map

I keep going, "Ascent" on a loop, its minimalist beauty entrancing me
until I find a large television in a small corner.
A few people are gathered around, solemn,
the television entrancing them, the music washing over the room.

First the white words centered against the black screen: "The Bomb".
The come the white-and-black photos and footage of the mushroom clouds hovering above Hiroshima, then Nagasaki,
standing tall like ungainly trees in an empty field.

The soundtrack to the short video before me is "Ascent",
or rather an excerpt, a piece of it, stirring strange emotions
Familiar ones that I give attribution to when I listen to it on my own.
Yet it feels different coming from this;
on the screen a few photographs of corpses and burnt victims flash by.
And then the screen fades to black, a moment of silence
before it all starts again

I hear this loop and see these images before me as I fly above
the imagined city in ruins
And for a brief moment I am the Enola Gay;
I will only know it at the bottom of a hotel pool