the pilgrim continues his way
i live on an ocean of soft sweet messes
breaking like waves over my back. to live
is to be charmed and to feel the tumult
of color driving everything, chaos in
theory marking victims for practice.
i am twentysomething good-for-nothing
leaving footprints here to marrakesh
with my fingers full of soot, searching
for the salty sea to wash my plainclothes
in. my body wanders the marketplaces
full of sand, bookshelves pouring stories
out of their hardcover frames, their
promissory notes etched within. it is
daylight and i am searching for my father.
i have found him in a freckle, in the
sunlight on my skin, in the total absence
of a home, a floating tree devoid of roots.
instead i have come upon this ocean
overflowing, prone to madness, with
jonah’s whale and st. elmo’s fire, the
only truth living in the promise of
the deep, the only constant living in
the nothing. when i ask questions
the sky turns upwards, loses color.
i have found instead the raucous ruin
in every city i leave behind, the trail
of sad decisions and weary men, all
easter baskets full of sighs. home
is good friday between arms, on the
chest of the morning, a boy turning man
on the cusp of the desert. we welcome
night and dance, toast to the distance
in everything, to the homes we’ve
wandered across, the love we’ve let
ourselves devour–the bodies that
keep us whole.