right hand pointing

A l e x   S t o l i s

Into the Land of Nod

Genesis 2:15:  And the LORD God took the man, and put him into the garden of Eden to dress it and to keep it. 

There’s noise outside. Sounds like a bar fight. It’s all what you’re used to. I’m used to dirt and sand, blue secrets from an overflowing river. This journey is hot with salvation. Voices drone on. Oblivious to the mute squawk of police radios and shattered glass. We’re all close, too close. She coughs my way. Yes, this is sex. This is sin. This is enlightenment by degree.

Genesis 2:17:   But of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, thou shalt not eat of it: for in the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die.

We want to believe our minds will keep us safe, but they won’t. I tell her that sometimes I practice dying; fully-winged, eyes closed, waiting for a crash of wind. Someone passes the basket. Take what you need, leave the rest. We get ready to preamble. I catch her glance. Imagine we’re lolling on a beach in Kerouac’s Mexico. She knows we’re already there, whiskeys in a row, a tapestry of sand with every word ever uttered waiting for high tide to wash us away.