in the year 2020; because
she gives disappointing answers
like Souls are God’s
experiments in embodiment and
Our form is no accident
which I take to mean God won’t
bring me back as an eagle,
or even a wolf, even if I ask him to;
because according to
Lorna I don’t actually have other lives,
just one continuous life
that somehow keeps going in spite
of my many bodies;
because each of our lives happens
out of order
but it’s not like time travel, it’s that
time doesn’t exist
in the spiritual dimension; because
time and space apply
to physical bodies, but the universe
is much more than that;
because in the spiritual dimension
time is one and so
it’s not really like a highway at all
but like a parking lot,
all you have to do to get a new life
is walk to the edge
and jump off;
Forest Glen, 1991 – Spring
Because the room is not a room
but an entire house and
Don and I are the only ones in it;
because it is still winter,
and the black cast-iron stove
doubles as a fireplace,
around which both of us shiver;
because it is early morning
and the hills are a mosaic
of white-robed spruce
rolled in snow like rounds
of cotton glass, so soft
I imagine myself a giant
rolling over them;
because that which keeps you warm
also cuts; because Don
insists we lie naked together,
for shared bodily warmth,
and my body is small enough to be
enfolded in his arms;
because his cock gets in the way,
presses against the small
of my back and it annoys me;
because I say so, and he
turns away and takes the blankets
with him; because I
pull him back; because soon
enough it is morning,
there’s a fire roaring in the stove
downstairs, its thick,
black pipes shuddering from the
sudden heat, and tea,
blistering hot even with mittens,
is already whistling
in the kettle; because this is
the best place in the world
during the day when things are normal,
a wilderness without
judgement, only the usual dangers;
because we all know
what happens to a child lost
in a forest at night;
Forest Glen, 1991 – Spring
Because the room is not a room
but a place where many
things happen — a room full of books,
National Geographics
stacked five deep along one wall,
tiny, dusty objects from
Don’s travels around the world,
gods in all shapes and
sizes in wood and onyx, leathered
flesh and mounted fur;
because I have nothing to do
but read and it’s still
just the two of us together —
when the others come
camp will start and my life
will go back to normal;
because it is spring, almost
summer, and after that
I will have to go back to school
where rules are taught
and knowledge is ruined;
because I feel
incredibly smart having heard
Don read the entire
Iliad aloud, having read Plato
myself, wrapping
a white sheet over my torso,
having dressed
as a Native American
in a leather thong
of my own making, which Don
finds cute so he takes
a picture, which I plan to burn
as soon as it is developed;
Forest Glen, 1991 – Summer
Because the room is a field
surrounded by trees
where your enemies are waiting;
because this is war
and the red band on your arm
tells everyone else
who you are; because the arrow
tip is blunt, but the bow
is strong, you made it that way;
because the game
is to get the blue bandana from
the other team’s fort
on the other side of those trees,
so you circle around
and catch the blond boy hiding
behind a bush, tap
him with your bow so he lies down
dead, no peal of horror;
because you’re close enough
to capture your prize,
so you make a run for it but get
tapped by R., which means
you’re dead, which infuriates
you; because you’re dead
and you lie on the ground staring
up at the trees waiting
for Don’s whistle; because this
is how enemies are made,
and afterwards a fight breaks out,
so Don makes us sit
in a circle with a talking feather;
because all manner of
complaints come out, and when
Don’s turn comes
he puts the feather in his hair,
and says, See, now
don’t we all feel better? and asks
Who wants to go into town
tomorrow and buy candy
at the general store?;
Leesburg, 1991 – Fall
Because there’s nothing so satisfying
as ripping apart your
own skin, watching layer after
layer peel away until
even pain has no origin; because
the poison has seeped
all over your hands, spread to your
legs, your arms, your chest,
covered your crotch so that it burns
even worse than the rest;
because you’re visiting your mother
before school starts
and it only took you one day
to wander into a patch
of poison ivy and now your trip
is ruined: your face,
your neck, a splotchy mess, so you
can’t even go outside;
because you can’t keep your hands
out of your pants; because
strangely, the inflamed flesh
makes you aroused,
so you scratch one itch to relieve
the other; because
the doctor chuckles when he sees
your penis, swollen
beyond belief, and prescribes a cream
to relieve the swelling,
but it’s too late, you’ve already
refined your technique
and another itch persists
despite the return
to normal dimensions —
and interestingly,
your method is just like Don’s,
a two-finger pinch,
though you lack his stamina
in the wrist;
1992
Margaree Valley, 1992 – Summer
Because the room is a one-room
schoolhouse where Don
keeps a telephone and bicycles
and a large fast-freezer
filled with boxes of Popsicles,
blocks of meat
and bag
s of frozen green beans
five miles from the cabin
in the woods where he teaches us
to track animals and build
sweat lodges and stretch deerskin
into drums, how to plane
wood by hand to make strong bows
and which twigs to strip
to make the straightest arrows;
because there are more
abandoned cabins in these hills
than inhabited ones,
so you learn to find your own;
because to find the perfect arrow
is to shoot it, to calculate the wind,
to make a lean-to out of twigs
and leaves and a long spine post
heaved over a rock,
to build a fire and a heat reflector,
to play your drum in time
with the others, and to know
what roots to pick
and which ferns are edible,
each morning a hunt
for what we might eat at lunch,
and in the winter, to read,
to think, to keep warm at night;
Forest Glen, 1992 – Summer
Because the room is not a room
but a small clearing deep
in the forest halfway up
the mountain that rises
behind our cabin; because I am
alone here, having hiked
farther into the hills behind
Don’s cabin than I’ve dared
to before; because I didn’t
tell anyone at camp
where I was going, I could stay
out here all night, maybe
even forever, and not see another
person again; because
even this lost I know I’m not alone,
I feel the eyes of animals
upon me, feel even the eyes
of old Indian ghosts;
because my skin is untempered
by the weather, my spirit
untested by a night without walls,
without a roof, without
blankets, with only the fire
I’d have to make myself,
with no one else, I question
my ability to survive,
and it annoys me; because this
is a story I read to myself:
a young brave who goes to the top
of a mountain for three
days and three nights to become
a man; who has visions,
who talks to his spirit animal,
who soars over his village
and sees his sisters down by the
river and his mother
hard at work, who sees the woman
he will marry and the
child they will have together,
who will be his apple,
who sees his entire future and how
short the path is, both
behind him and ahead of him,
and resolves to live all of it,
no matter what happens to him;
because it is a child’s
story, but I still want to be in it;
because there is peace
in these woods, too, and when I close
my eyes I can hear the trees
whispering, can hear insects
chewing and trunks creaking
and the drumbeat of birds flitting
through the underbrush;
because I wait until the late,
low sun’s fingers ignite
the forest’s litter, setting fire
to carpets of moss,
blazing fallen logs and crumbling
stumps, until the ferns
glimmer like fingered parasols,
lighting even me
with an ember of flame; because
this is the moment
I need to become someone else;
because time doesn’t stand
still, and neither does the sun;
because soon it will be
dark and difficult to find my way
back; because the forest
is growing denser and scarier
even as the sky breaks
into colors more beautiful than any
I’ve ever seen before;
because the sky’s so gorgeous
I can’t look away, can’t
bring myself to climb back down
the boulder that lets me
see clear across the valley;
because I want to stay,
I need this vision, I need to know
what my spirit animal
looks like, what my future has to say;
because I sit on that rock
until the sun crashes down
into its own dirty rainbow
and the hills across from me go black;
Forest Glen, 1992 – Summer
Because the room is a circle of light
where two weeks later
I am surrounded by deepest darkness;
because the fire is low,
so I stoke it and toss more
leaves on it to make it
rise up and glow; because I’ve made
this fire myself; because
I will spend the next two nights
down by the river,
waiting for my vision to appear;
because I can hear
the river roaring, unstoppable
on its way to the sea;
because I am thirsty; because
I really have to pee;
because I am too afraid to venture
into what I cannot see;
because I need this fire
to ward off those
who would eat me; because I want
a vision, but visions
don’t come to those who aren’t free
of their bodies; because
I am hungry, my bag of nuts
reduced to dust which I lick
until the plastic rips; because
I can’t bring myself to
extinguish the fire while I sleep,
and so I wake up cold
to still-warm cinders and a burn-
hole in my sleeping bag;
because the light this early has
no source, it will be hours
before the sun crests the lowest
hill and dries the dew
that covers every leaf and blade
of grass in this valley;
because the birds will not wait
for the sun to grace the trees
to flood the forest with their
cacophony; because
the mosquitos have already had
their way with my body,
and now the black flies
are coming for their due;
because this is the first part
of my vision quest —
I have to survive beyond my body
in order to see what
my eyes won’t allow me; because
two days later, dizzy
with hunger, I will see a hawk
resting on the lowest branch
of the closest tree; because it doesn’t
move when I don’t move;
because it disappears when I do;
Santa Fe, 1992 – Summer
Because the room is not a room
but a hillside with a
clear view of the only raincloud
in the sky, a bulbous
monstrosity with a crimson cap
and a swollen purple
belly rimmed by a belt of rich
desert gold from all
the dust kicked up around it;
because it is the single
most beautiful thing I have ever
seen and I want Don
to stop watching it with me;
because we were
almost caught the night before;
because Don wanted us
to be alone so we could do more;
because it got so cold
we had no choice but to zip
our sleeping bags together
and strip off all our clothes
for shared bodily warmth;
because the next morning
a forest ranger found us,
huddled together like lovers,
and hollered us awake
from his truck, giving us just
enough time to haul on
our underwear and pants,
and for Don to come up
with a story about how his
flashlight got lost and
we couldn’t find our way back
to the campsite so we
had to build a fire — yes, we know
we’re not supposed to —
and so fire becomes the issue,
how clever;
because Don broke the rules,
our rule was always
no means no and yet I woke up
with his mouth around me
for the third time this trip;
because he can’t help himself
and is always contrite, so it seems
better to focus on
what he will buy me for breakfast;
1993
Tulum, 1993 – Spring
Because the room is a beach hut
in Mexico that takes us
three hours to reach by bus;
because we’re already
sick of each other, with S. and J.,
Don’s two students,
already at one another’s throats
and Don’s talking
feather incapable of doing
anything to resolve it;
because J. can’t keep his hands off
S. at night and S. can’t
stop bitching about it; because
to keep the peace
I offer to share my bed with J.,
even though I hate
the way he smells, that little-kid
stink — gooey, sweet;
because he wants to feel me up
and I finally let him;
because I let him get me off
one night and again
the next, until I’ve had enough
of it; because I’ve had
enough of it but Don hasn’t,
wants to see for himself
what we do at night; because
one day we return
from the beach to find all the beds
pushed together,
which sends me into a rage
at the three of them;
because I wander the beach alone
and run into the woman
I met earlier, an entomologist
twenty years my senior
who offered to give me a lesson
in human anatomy
and removed her top just as Don
called me away;
because the woman is an expert
in the mating habits
of insects and lays out
an impressive collection
of beetles and flies on the sand,
today’s catch,
and lets me touch each one;
because I hoped
my sunglasses were dark enough
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