because that’s what one reciter of the Quran did, he placed his right hand just below the white turban and rocked back and forth as he sang each sura. I did the same as a child, and years and years later, in a smoke-filled café in San Francisco, at my first reading with a dozen or so young poets, all as awful as I was, your earnest and naive pickaninny faggot approached the microphone, and without my thinking about it, my right hand covered my ear, I rocked back and forth, and I blasphemously sang my poem. Both members of the audience thought it was delightful, as did the other poets, my performance was so exotic and quaint. But I was not putting on a show, that was how I learned to read, and to write too.
One day when I was not feeling well—I was a very sickly child as you’d expect—my mother came to sit on the lower left corner of my bed, my left, wishing to have a serious conversation. I was to begin writing to my father, once or twice or thrice a week, I was to send a postcard to him in Beirut. My father would one day finish high school, graduate from college, make something of himself, and he was my father. I was to tell him of my days, what I was learning, what I loved and cared about, to remind him of me, to make him see that I deserved my dreams, that I was worthy.
The Visit
I know you came to visit me, I know. It wasn’t just Behemoth’s odd behavior, the instant I walked through the door he rushed down the stairs and jumped into my arms from the fifth step, right smack into me, his claws digging into my chest, drawing three dots of blood that bloomed on my work shirt. I carried him upstairs only to find the front hall light off when I was sure I’d left it on, and the light in your room was on, as was the one in the toilet. At first I was confused because why would you want to use the toilet when you’re dead and gone, ghosts don’t need to pee, but then I knew it was you because who else would turn your room light on, who else but you? Also, you ignored the faux Tiffany Mission lamp on the dresser that you probably didn’t recognize, I put it there long after you left. I felt weird, I was supposed to feel violated, someone was in my house, but no, I didn’t, it wasn’t someone, it was you, and this was always your house too, in fact it wasoddly comfortable, you being there was just right. Was there something you had to tell me?
I sat down, terrifically exhausted, couldn’t do anything, not even make dinner, so I went to bed, which was something I never did after work, never that early. I turned off the lights, the lamp next to my bed, another faux Tiffany, and so help me, I felt you lie down beside me. You hugged me, you held me. You thought I didn’t know, didn’t you? I did, I knew it was you. I slept a Rip van Winkle sleep, dreamt of snow on dark waters and lake baptisms, woke up after ten solid hours. I know you’re here. You can come out now. While my mind processed the chaos that passes for thought in the early morning, I had cracked five eggs by the time I realized I was about to make you an omelet as well. Decades may have passed and sometimes it feels like only yesterday that we had our breakfast together. I looked at the one remaining unbroken egg on the counter, a deep brown in its gray carton, I couldn’t move, couldn’t budge, it hit me how alone I’d been, a blow to the solar plexus that almost doubled me over in pain. I’d had a life since you left, I still worked at the same tedious law firm, I made perfunctory friends, on Wednesdays I had lunch with the other four word processors at the firm, I did yoga on Monday and Thursday nights, meditation on Tuesdays, I went to art openings, I hovered in the back of bookshops at poetry readings, I watched bad television shows with soporific gay characters that were supposed to represent me, I was living, I thought I was content, I was told I was happy. I did a marvelous impression of a man not crushed by dread. Once I felt your warm
One day when I was not feeling well—I was a very sickly child as you’d expect—my mother came to sit on the lower left corner of my bed, my left, wishing to have a serious conversation. I was to begin writing to my father, once or twice or thrice a week, I was to send a postcard to him in Beirut. My father would one day finish high school, graduate from college, make something of himself, and he was my father. I was to tell him of my days, what I was learning, what I loved and cared about, to remind him of me, to make him see that I deserved my dreams, that I was worthy.
The Visit
I know you came to visit me, I know. It wasn’t just Behemoth’s odd behavior, the instant I walked through the door he rushed down the stairs and jumped into my arms from the fifth step, right smack into me, his claws digging into my chest, drawing three dots of blood that bloomed on my work shirt. I carried him upstairs only to find the front hall light off when I was sure I’d left it on, and the light in your room was on, as was the one in the toilet. At first I was confused because why would you want to use the toilet when you’re dead and gone, ghosts don’t need to pee, but then I knew it was you because who else would turn your room light on, who else but you? Also, you ignored the faux Tiffany Mission lamp on the dresser that you probably didn’t recognize, I put it there long after you left. I felt weird, I was supposed to feel violated, someone was in my house, but no, I didn’t, it wasn’t someone, it was you, and this was always your house too, in fact it wasoddly comfortable, you being there was just right. Was there something you had to tell me?
I sat down, terrifically exhausted, couldn’t do anything, not even make dinner, so I went to bed, which was something I never did after work, never that early. I turned off the lights, the lamp next to my bed, another faux Tiffany, and so help me, I felt you lie down beside me. You hugged me, you held me. You thought I didn’t know, didn’t you? I did, I knew it was you. I slept a Rip van Winkle sleep, dreamt of snow on dark waters and lake baptisms, woke up after ten solid hours. I know you’re here. You can come out now. While my mind processed the chaos that passes for thought in the early morning, I had cracked five eggs by the time I realized I was about to make you an omelet as well. Decades may have passed and sometimes it feels like only yesterday that we had our breakfast together. I looked at the one remaining unbroken egg on the counter, a deep brown in its gray carton, I couldn’t move, couldn’t budge, it hit me how alone I’d been, a blow to the solar plexus that almost doubled me over in pain. I’d had a life since you left, I still worked at the same tedious law firm, I made perfunctory friends, on Wednesdays I had lunch with the other four word processors at the firm, I did yoga on Monday and Thursday nights, meditation on Tuesdays, I went to art openings, I hovered in the back of bookshops at poetry readings, I watched bad television shows with soporific gay characters that were supposed to represent me, I was living, I thought I was content, I was told I was happy. I did a marvelous impression of a man not crushed by dread. Once I felt your warm
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