Because the room is a letter
addressed to you, in it he writes,
You were always the most important
and gives his regards
to my parents and sisters,
to my parrot, Max, who
crapped his fair share on my shoulders;
because the letter says
All I’m taking with me is my wallet,
a change of clothes,
and a photo of you, but admits
to nothing out of the ordinary
beyond the simple fact
that he had to leave
his students stranded
at a roadside motel
outside Sydney, Nova Scotia,
while his wallet, spare
socks, and a photo of me raced
south to Halifax
International Airport in the van
he abandoned seven
hours later when he boarded
a plane to Boston,
and then another to Manila,
though it would be
unclear whether he had actually
gotten on it or not,
and right now that doesn’t
matter anyway since
there is only one APB out
for a missing person,
and everyone is worried for him;
Forest Glen, 1994 – Fall
Because the room is an abandoned
cabin in a meadow
surrounded by trees and a river
whose rush sounds like traffic
rising up from the deep ravine
below us; because the
cabin is abandoned and no one
knows how long it will
take to get ransacked; because
my sisters and I want
to take what books we can before
the damp consumes them all;
because it is fall, red and yellow
leaves paving the path up
to Don’s cabin one month later
and we have no idea
what we will find there —
What if it’s been burned down?;
because parents are angry now,
vandals are everywhere
and burning abandoned cabins
is not an unusual form
of entertainment around here;
because the cabin is
still standing when we get there
with a padlock on the door,
so I break in through the basement,
and race upstairs to find
what I am looking for before
letting my sisters in
through a window; because
what I am looking for
is no longer there, the closet
and all its secret contents
have been cleared; because I say,
Don’s already been here
and prove it by pointing to the
empty shelf where Don
kept nude photos of me and god
knows who else, and say,
Don kept money here; because my
sisters are here for books,
so we stuff as much as we can
into our backpacks;
because we know that whatever
we leave won’t survive
the winter, first one window
will break then another,
till the floor is covered
in fallen leaves
and snow, until the books
and upholstery are rotten
and the whole thing
gets consigned to fire;
North Grant, 1994 – Fall
Because the room is the room
in which you sit
with your friend drinking
stolen beer; because
he is your neighbour, in a place
that bores the shit
out of both of you; because
bored boys do things
they shouldn’t;
because you get along,
but only after school when no
one else can see you;
because neither of you has a girl-
friend but you are both
horny and bored and you at least
are curiously immune
to things that normally would
have repulsed you;
because he is curious, too,
and when you ask
to see his thing, he pulls it out
and wags it in your face,
then asks to see yours, too;
because his thing
is bigger than your thing,
curves to the left
like a brown banana
with a bulbous tip;
because yours is paler, smaller
but only by a year
(or so you hope!); because he’s
been with girls before,
which makes you horribly insecure;
because results are
all that matter and his splooge
is ridiculously huge;
because the minute it’s over
you are right back
where you were, fucking
bored, and somehow
more desperate than before;
1996
Macken Road, 1996 – Winter
Because the room is not a room
but an entire country
I know nothing about except
that boys can be bought
for cheap; because for years
I have imagined Don
in the Philippines, squatting
on a dirt floor
surrounded by dark-skinned boys
smiling through
unbrushed teeth at one of his
wondrous stories,
a story, perhaps, about a place
where the water
is so clean one can drink it
straight from the spring,
where it comes out almost sweet;
because he is in a place
where rain tastes sweet but only
because of the pollution
and for some reason I imagine him
buying bracelets
from tiny boys with naked asses
and callused feet;
because I saw it in a National
Geographic, a hot place,
wild with opportunities for sex,
where for a few dollars
parents can be bought,
police officers can be bought,
children can be brought to you;
because I imagine men
coming for Don in the night,
gang men in dirty clothes
out to rob an old pervert
out of his element;
because Don has no money,
all his bank accounts
are monitored and his credit cards
have been blocked;
because in my dreams he comes
back — I am at the mall,
or in my bed, unable to push him
away, my arms oddly
weak, unresponsive; because
his beard burrows deep
into my crotch, beard to beard,
he jokes; because I am
fully grown now, my body has
finished devouring itself;
because being weak scares me
more than anything;
because it isn’t his strength
that scares me but
his insistence and my inability
to resist that
which is no longer irresistible;
1997
The Landing, 1997 – Summer
Because the room is a strip
of land behind my house
where a girl and I plan to have
sex for the first time
and she asks me
if I’ve ever done it before,
ever worn a condom before,
and I have no idea
what to
say so I say,
No, you are the first
then change my mind, say,
No, well actually . . . ;
because I don’t want her to think
I’m a virgin, but
now I’m caught in the weirdest
kind of lie — a lie
with two parts, both true:
the I’ve-never-fucked-
a-girl-so-I’m-technically-a-virgin
part, and the I-fucked-
an-old-man-up-the-ass-so-what-
does-that-make-me-now
part; because the story I remember
is not the story I want
to tell; because right now I only
remember episodes
and they all gross me out;
because what’s interesting
is not the plot, but what happens
once the story is over,
so I tell her about a woman
I met in Mexico
when I was fourteen, an entomologist
with tanned breasts
and hands like sandpaper, whose
moans shook the grass
walls of our hut at the far end
of the beach, whose
laughter broke with the waves
and somewhere behind
the tree-lined beach, church bells;
who said cheers and got me
drunk on red wine from a box;
because this answer
is real enough to reassure her
that I am still pure
but possibly a little warped,
so she says, ok,
I figured there was a little something
there, and blows out
the candle so we can start;
1999
Atlanta, 1999 – Summer
Because the first adult you tell
is your older sister,
and the result is hilarious;
because she acts like
it’s something that happened to her,
even though the only
thing that happened was that
you told her; because
now her eyes are full of tears,
so you try to hug her
and she says, No, don’t, that’s not
what I want, so you
change the story, find another
thread of truth,
but the new version
only confuses things further;
because she says, Which one is it?
You were his lover or you
were abused?; because both things
can’t be true;
so she asks Why?,
she asks, How?;
because everything I say
comes out wrong,
and there’s no one true story
I can tell that will make
her go, Oh, ok, now I understand;
because you’re only
just now trying out the truth;
because what’s true
is the room you’ve shattered
and must now piece
back together, but the shards
are many and, admit it,
you don’t have patience for puzzles;
because something
incomprehensible just happened
that actually happened
a long time ago for you;
because even you
still have no clue, it would be easier
to solve Pi than
crack the code of the man
who molested you;
Main Street, 1999 – Summer
Because the room is a jail cell
in Contra Costa, California,
where Don has been arrested
and is now awaiting
extradition four and a half years
after he escaped, and
no one blames him for being afraid
of California prisons,
but charges are pending and
more are on the way;
because within days
Don is on a plane
to Nova Scotia, in a transport van
to my home town,
the county seat, where he’ll
await trial in a red-
bricked jail behind a white-pillared
courthouse two blocks
from the Chinese restaurant
on Main Street
where my younger sister and I
dare each other
to throw pebbles at his window
to see if he’ll look out,
to see what he looks like now;
New Jersey Turnpike, 1999 – Summer
Because the room is any room
you can find yourself
alone in long enough to get
yourself off; because
the room is a truck stop on I-95
in New York State
with a grimy bathroom and dried
piss on the seat;
because the smell kills your
inspiration and you
try to get it done fast;
because something
boils inside you — you can’t stop —
and you know
that as soon as you walk out,
the urge will come back;
because the girl is fresh
in your mind,
when she leans down you see
her breasts, soft,
with a line below the shirt
where her tan skin
whitens and for a moment,
a nipple appears;
because when she looked up
and caught you staring
she smiled; because all of her
gestures are purposeful
now that she’s in your mind,
where you keep her,
and don’t let her go, not until
you let go, which
is taking forever; because now
someone is knocking
on the door, You alright in there?
Still alive?
so you give up, slide the lock,
step outside,
avoiding eye contact, squinting
into the sudden
brightness, and grope your way
back to the car;
Main Street, 1999 – Summer
Because the room is a courtroom
in Antigonish, Nova Scotia,
where Don fires lawyer after lawyer
to keep himself out of court;
because the court grows impatient
and orders the trial to start;
because subpoenas are sent;
because you are a recipient,
a witness for the defence;
because his wife loves him
and spends day after day
in a lawn chair in front
of the laundromat staring up
at the second floor
of the brick lock-up behind
the courthouse where
he waits, third window from the left;
because she knows
you love him, too, and begs you
to testify on his behalf;
because he loves you; because
he was your friend,
the only one you had, remember?;
because she won’t
let you forget; because forgetting
isn’t an option until
it’s the only one you have left;
Venice Pizza, 1999 – Summer
Because the room is the bar
where you confess
to your father over a glass
of single malt;
because he has ordered a single
malt for you; because
he wants to know — or wants
to know what it means
to know, wants to analyse it,
to take it apart,
to make it acceptable;
because he doesn’t know;
because he thinks he needs
because knowing and
understanding
are not the same thing;
because facts are misleading;
because knowledge is a balm,
but only for a second;
Macken Road, 1999 – Summer
Because the room is the liquorice
jar my mother foists
at me every time I look sad;
because everything
that happens now is Don’s fault,
and therefore her fault:
if you can’t sleep, if you sleep
too much, if you break up
with a nice girl for no reason;
because unlike my father
my mother doesn’t ask questions;
because the answer
to each one is the same, the worst
possible explanation;
because my mother doesn’t seek
forgiveness
where absolution is unachievable;
because the only thing
left to achieve are facts,
and I can’t watch her
face them, I have no answers
to make her feel better,
and when I tell her
it’s not her fault,
that I don’t blame her
(Don fooled everyone!),
I realise the only answers she wants
belong to questions
only she can answer for herself;
because I can’t help but
remember the long silences
of our drives to Cape Breton,
to the petrol station where Don
would pick me up, and how
I never once thanked her for it,
barely said a word,
in fact, when all she wanted
was to talk;
III
JERICHO
Philadelphia, 2003 – Spring
Because the room is a restaurant
in Philadelphia
where my older sister and I sit
waiting for our order;
because my sister is thinking
about the children
she might have someday, and
wants to know
if I will ever be a danger to them
because of my experience;
because she is completely
unembarrassed
by her bluntness, the presumption
only an older sibling
can pull off; because her question
is not really a question
but an assumption she expects
me to refute (of course not!);
because it never would have
occurred to her
had it not been for her friend
(we were just talking and . . .);
because years later, after she’s
married, after her
daughter is born, I’ll remember
this conversation
and wonder if this is why
she didn’t let me know
until after they had gone
they’d spent the entire
summer just a few hours’ drive
from where I was living;
because the world we live in
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