Peregrination

They came at night and dragged me to the colonies. They had pillars there. They had pyres there. Mary Gaitskill was their Queen there. “Beware,” they said. “We own you. We’ll come by the thousands.” They took me on a punitive boat tour of the colonies. I saw koalas. I saw rodeos. I saw doctors with-out borders. I was made to try cuisines, such as steak, such as ping-pong, such as famine. The cumulative effect of my travels was dysentery. My eyes bled and steamed and Mary Gaitskill found me wretched. She threw me to the swine. I wooed her down among the hogs. I stole a kiss there in my blindness. My hands weren’t my hands, but oh! They were the colonies.

We were an empire then! An entire freewheeling culture-circus with me at the mizzen and Mary Gaitskill at prow. I forgave my captors and taught myself love. Truth shone there, in the twilight, a signal star.