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put up your umbrella against meteors, and retrieve the book of instructions. Put the book on the table on its spine. It should fall open to the page you need. What does it say? Go ahead and read the instructions aloud. Many friends and relations are waiting to hear. Don’t be embarrassed. The instructions may not be immediately easy to understand. You may have to think on it. When others tell you what you should do, listen respectfully. Nod. Thank them for their wisdom. But do not do anything they tell you. This itself may be difficult advice to follow.

Thousand: Nine Hundred Sixty-Seven

to the rim of the crater, you will get to the foot of the stairs. But will you get all the way? The ball keeps losing air. Smoke tumbles from the bowl. The blue ribbon needs dusting. The dried flowers survived the house fire and now stink of soot and ash. The lake on the other side of the road only ever existed on the map, drawn there for copyright reasons. Auguries and bobcats. A wedding of vomit and paradise. When you are alone, wearing your glittering mask, and a flash for a moment hides the moon, you have to

Thousand: Nine Hundred Sixty-Six

the whither, the yawn, the long con, the soft porn, the strong heart and the broken. Where will the bean stalk pierce the clouds and which palace will the ant find pregnable? What will you tell your friends? Is there a vote for character in that calabash? I remember you, the wind says, touching each leaf. I remember you, says the last leaf yanked from the branch, but the memory slips under the surface of the stream which is already icing over. Is it far? No. No, it isn’t far. You’ve gone much greater distances. You will get to the

Thousand: Nine Hundred Sixty-Five

The tingling of an art, tuned to a C or to a bow through which water falls, cutting colors from white, villagers standing nearby, one odd one dancing. The four who got cut and felt. Orange houses, the white out, again only in overcoats, dilaudid computed for a full skull. The boy this time in the bath with lace, bubbles confusing black hair. Littler, ever littler and harder to locate. Weather vainly riparian, the shot out of the gun, it was fennel and rocket. If I had to live I would live with candy. A better day scene, chatting about

Thousand: Nine Hundred Sixty-Four

impotence, grace exhaling across whales. Sometimes you are able to touch, to reach out and touch. A shadow draws a line down your face. In a formal kilt, a boutonniere of orchid gratitude. Snowflakes catch in the lashes. An otter’s head rises from the green river, a cascade of silver. Between trucks the flight of the fish. Boy and girl at the end of the dock wait for the fact of the eye, a biographical extension into the lie of the moon. Families are fine for afternoons. Where evening was set aside, light accidentally framed a black ear, a braid.

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the twist confront amended then, in a bright mews, fendering the small snicker with two loops and a squint. Say you love and with your love conspire. Say you love and dislodge the mud, the reckoning with wit of a piece with a never sampled burden, a light stirring of frank assessment in the wee hours, what a pile of murder weapons in an evidence locker contributes to the human swindle, where the bridge stretches, naked cables and burnished rivets, purchase on a foundation of despair the happy fall. We will not abide, the wharf rat whispered, such signs, such

Thousand: Nine Hundred Sixty-Two

Jesus’ insides. It’s a familiar tune. Are there words? What are words for? No one listens anymore. A tiled tightrope wearing fresh across the nucleus draws sighs from the forest soak. Jesus parts his lips. O yea, lions of laughter and salience, come forth, the north-facing slant of the yardarm conspiring in williwaw, a yellow mirror down in arches, the flail of the old grim parent cupped in tutoring, walnuts. The rampant fast well in hand, the purple sang in all wheedle. Rolling over battered red youth, the white weeds bungle the make. Box after box, mild after smiled, mending

Thousand: Nine Hundred Sixty-One

After the passage has curved away from the light on the angel and the shadows deepen until the only illumination is the faint glow from the path, a glow so insignificant it sometimes seems imaginary, the stone wall the left hand touches, touches lightly here and there, has it softened? It’s not just a change in the hardness, a greater smoothness, but there’s a warmth, a friendly warmth, a cozy, welcoming warmth. The wall’s texture has become silky. Could this be fur? The hand is finding much pleasure sliding along, feeling its way. A humming greater than his own tickles

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his lips and peers at the page, bringing it closer and closer until it bumps his nose. His mouth begins to form the shapes of words, though silently. Jesus closes the door. The light pouring into the cave is still so bright Jesus can’t really make out the angel’s body, though he can hear sobbing. He turns away. Holding one hand out to the side, his fingers in contact with the wall, Jesus ventures on into the dark. Heaven. It could be worse. Jesus hums to himself as he walks. Wherever the path takes you, that is where you go.

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chair beside a round endtable holding a brass lamp with a yellow shade. The lamp stands on a lace doily and casts a warm glow. A merry fire dances in a brick fireplace. On the chair’s seat cushion a blue bound volume has been laid open face down. As Jesus watches, a man in a cardigan sweater hobbles across the room and leans with one hand on an arm of the chair. The other picks up the book which he presses against his chest. Slowly he spins around, and with evident caution lowers himself into the chair. The man smacks

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the light that it seems to be deconstructing him, too, the light peeling away in a shell that splits and and shivers and sunders. Jesus takes another step back, turns his face away, his eyes so overwhelmed they see nothing now but a green panel. Wherever he turns the green panel floats before him. No, he’s not blinded, for a little further down the path Jesus sees another door. Green, of course. Like the first this door has no handle. With a firm push, the door’s latch disengages and the door swings open. Within he sees a wine-red leather-upholstered easy

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Jesus tries to see what he’s uncovered. Light. That seems to be it. White light fills the doorway. The angel crawls forward on his knees, bowing his head, holding the bundle out as though it were an offering. When he gets to the edge, where the gravel of the path gives way to nothing but light, he leans as far forward as he can and the bundle of dead leprechaun seems almost to disappear into the light, seems almost to bleed away in thin hair-like streams into the light. The angel is sobbing, his gold skin reflecting so much of

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toward it. A line perpendicular to the ceiling, a line parallel to the first, two more horizontal, one of those above, one low to the floor. As it looks like the outline of a door, Jesus feels for a handle. He finds none. He tries pushing. At first push, nothing moves, but tried at the other side, there’s some give. He pushes until it resists then withdraws his hand. The door swings open, a swath of light falling into the dark cave. Dazzled, Jesus steps back, covering his eyes with his sleeve. “Oh! Oh!” cries the angel. Squinting and blinking

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from scratch. There were times he bluffed his way back into an old life, once as a long lost son come to claim his rightful inheritance; once as himself having been lynched, now stalking his killers as vengeful ghost (he smiles at the memory); once as himself having learned the secret of eternal youth. It is damned dim in here. When Jesus looks at his feet they are merely black blobs against the path’s fading glow. The angel is panting. “Is this it? Are we here?” Just ahead Jesus detects a faint line of light. A line? He walks softly

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many lives, he has a pretty good sense of what’s going to happen next. He can get blasé about it, thinking he’s seen it all, nothing can surprise because when was he last surprised? He’s seen people behaving badly and heroically, lovingly and cruelly. He’s learned the ways of most every culture, in a few lives while the other sex. Learning to be a woman was tricky, and the process taught him empathy all over again. That was then. You’ve tried human every which human way. What’s next? Another kind of animal? When Jesus opens resurrected eyes, he’s gotta start

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his neck. Did it twitch? Did it squirm? The angel’s golden heart beats golder. The corners of his mouth twitch, squirm as though uncertain what to do with a smile. Jesus, meanwhile, rubs his belly which has not yet been filled this lifetime. Is the path getting dimmer? By now, even if stone hasn’t met stone above, they are walking as in a cave, looking up frequently to gauge the height of the ceiling, letting a look linger in shadows where passages or treasures might hide. Jesus likes it when he knows what’s going to happen next. Having lived so

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fly,” the angel suggests. “If I fly around and reconnoiter we can see where we’re going.” “You don’t know where we’re going?” “I don’t know where we’re going?” the angel stammers, squeezing one hand in the other. “What do you mean?” As they press on the rock on either side of the path continues to rise and lean inward, closing out light from above. If the path itself were not aglow they would be stepping in darkness. “You don’t know where we’re going?” Jesus repeats. “I know where we’re going,” the angel says mechanically. One hand presses the bundle around

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path snaking among hills, then back at the angel. “That leprechaun’s only getting deader.” “No! Please!” cries the angel, falling to his knees. “You lead the way! You are the one! You are the one I must follow.” Jesus crosses his arms over his chest. “You dragged me up to heaven.” Jesus nods at the path. Trembling, the angel gets off his knees, bows humbly to the son, and, constantly looking over his shoulder, begins to walk ahead. Gradually the hills rise up around them until they are so hemmed in, it seems they will soon be underground. “I could

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Don’t let that worry you. God wouldn’t be in heaven otherwise. You ever heard of anybody living allowed into heaven? Deposited on the spongy floor of the divine destination Jesus yanks his hair out of the angel’s mouth. “God will bring the leprechaun back,” the angel hisses, sure Jesus would feel ashamed before his Father. The winding sheet Jesus wore in the desert now shimmers like heavenly robes and a shining path glistens before his naked feet. The angel steps back, alarmed. Jesus shakes his head. “You know heaven so well, lead the way to God.” He glances at the

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I asked for cupcakes,” the angel says, wiping a tear. “I did ask for cupcakes.” Quickly he rewraps the leprechaun, tying the bundle around his neck. Then he spins on Jesus. “Thank you,” he says. “Thank you for making me do this.” And the angel kisses the Son of God on the head, lipping two hairs in the gesture. The wings swing open and in two beats they are in the air, headed straight up. When you know the way it doesn’t take but a moment to get to heaven. The theatrics of a take-off aren’t necessary. God is dead.