Black haired silhouettes dance in recollections of August, strip naked, strike a pose-
Driving up and down Vine with a head full of acid, every passerby looks to be the death of me and the city smothers stars while they sleep,
Darkness about something on the radio, lost in hardwood floors and slanted ceilings, laying flat on my back in the depths of a Janis Joplin howl of pain,
Talking in rhythm and never rhyme, drawing inspiration from the atmosphere and picking poems from the tension, collision course ego trips clocked in at under zero revolutions per minute,
Revolutions that begin in ****** bars in the suburbs, continued into parking lots, to the front seats of cars, culminating in bedrooms the way all things do,
Fragments of lost phone numbers and sunrises on the highway, crash into me, break all my teeth, show my face to the world,
Just make sure I can still stand come morning, all tomorrow's parties won't wait for me or anybody else
And don't let me forget this, no matter how much I beg

Hayley Fienne scattered herself a year ago today. A hammer. A trigger. I sent flowers to a funeral home in Chandler, OK. I called. Said, "I can't imagine what you are going through" and something about how time turns the past into a form of fiction. DeLillo wrote that, I think.

Her mom said, "That's not true. That's not true."

And I wouldn't have said it if I hadn't known Hayley like I knew Hayley. She used to do these oil paintings on the nights she knew she wasn't going to class in the morning. I've a layman's knowledge of visual art but even I could tell her work was real. As opposed to what? I don't know. You just felt it. It kicked you in the gut, left you spinning around the room, asking every ******* in tweed, "Can I get some water?"

There was one large canvas in particular that stuck out. She called it "Dissolution."

The work depicted a seemingly amorphous spiral of headlight blues and star whites against the murky black of space. In the dead center of the piece she painted the face of a young man, broken into quadrants. The face was nothing more than a faint veil. If you scanned the canvas, you'd miss it.

When she showed the piece at a gallery event, featuring the work of outgoing seniors, I asked her who the man was.

"It's Jesus."

"You gave him a shave."

"It's actual Jesus. It's 'I'm thinking of converting to Buddhism' Jesus. It's lonely, masturbatory Jesus. It's the Jesus who stares at a ceiling fan wondering why Peter won't text him back," she said. "And above all, it's the Jesus God asks a little too much of, the Jesus that calls in sick."

I said I was unaware such a Jesus existed.

"Exists. Dealing with impossible quotas, he has to shave."

"I think your Jesus looks like you."

"He is."



Now it's a year later. I find comfort in the painting, allowing the erratic brush strokes, both fleeing and advancing, to lull me to--what? Just lull, I grant, aimless and asking answerless questions.

I think about her at the end, at her end-- but not the violence of it all. No, I think of the release.

No intended romance. I simply wonder how she would have wanted that final let-go in life's calendar marked by letting-goes to wrap. I imagine her body separating from her mind, her mind separating from her memories, her memories separating from her name. I think of her matter fractured and dispersed, directed where the universe, in its imperialistic expanse, requires.

I call her mom. Say, "I can't believe it's been a year" and something about how outer space makes me think of Hayley.

Her mom says, "I don't understand."



After I hang up I look at the painting. I look at Hayley's Jesus. And I think in memories, memories that may or may not have happened, I think of them in my chest--not my head. I think about mercy. I think about the infinite. And is there a place where they intersect?

My search for God has not led me far,
just into a bed with a man
Who spoke from scripture.

His holy spirit spat at me,
taking advantage to persecute my ignorance.
I thought God was there, his name came up,
The man believed, I am certain of this.

I spent small moments sitting in pews, listening,
Watching the moment of transfiguration.
A glistening, a subtle odor of Christ, I swear.

Wanting to believe so I might receive the sacraments,
Baptism, Holy Communion, Marriage.
I walked near, then turned down a stumbling road,
Never finishing, never marrying.

Still walking to God, in search of God,
Wanting to find him holding
A palm leaf, an olive branch, and a man.

Still walking, I'll plan a pilgrimage,
walk to a monastery,
Eat dry bread dipped in hot salted broth,
Walk until my soles tear,
My clothes dissolve into rags.

Walking,
I will walk to God
Until the end,
Even if a man denies my effort,
My head is down.

Once it was strong and full of life
Now it's a mismash of signs and rails
Place of the working man and his wife
Abandoned wood and left over tales
Now its dead with a forgotten past
Deserted on the beach as the birds fly
They soar upwards wild and fast
Up and up into the sun drenched sky
The wood is rotten and the metal rust
Waves swim through legs that are dead
A decaying image of grime and dust
As it eerily hangs out over the sea bed
I see the people take their snaps
Wondering how it might have been
For a minute of two longer perhaps
When it was alive, when it was clean
The beach is deserted apart from a few
Wandering in a sweet summers sun
Shame they can't enjoy it too
The pier that once breathed out fun
Where's the money, where's the care
Why has it been left to go
People loved to walk along there
To see the cabaret or the puppet show