I can’t go to the ___________ anymore

because it is like going on a tour

of my worst dates. I get older, my heart

leaps at the sight of children

who don’t belong to me, I pronounce

everything like an Italian opera title.

I used to listen to songs and have someone

in mind for the you parts, now I just want

to be where the light is intense, I want

the kind of heat that kills you

if you drive into it unprepared. This

isn’t a metaphor for anything else.

When I speak of the light, I mean the light.

I go to church and sing along and feel

just as moved as if my faith were blind.

When I speak of the blind, I mean

the light. Truly the only things Lindsay Lohan and I

have in common are our preoccupations

with fame and weight loss, and yet I recognize

a kinship there, as if those two things mattered

more than anything. When I speak of

the darkness, I mean this living.

In a restaurant called Caracas,

I once spent fifteen minutes arguing

about an Ayn Rand book because

every time he said Anthem I thought

he meant We the Living and I said

what dystopia, what about the woman,

and he said what about the Home

of the Infants and I said what

Home of the Infants? What about

loving a man so much you’ll sleep

with another man in order to finance

the first man’s tuberculosis treatment?

Welcome to Russia, I said, and we

were looking at each other and then

not. I tried to picture Caracas, tried

to leave him for elsewhere, a fever.