Andrew Booth
Current Blessedness It would be nice to write tales of St. Francis, but I don't think I can. Instead when the petals speak, they tell of my friends' new hats, haircuts, stacks of Coors Light boxes and scattered bits of happiness somewhere between them. When we were kids, Nick and I mashed every Friday night into the crawl space beneath his back porch to hear his father talk to their dog, because if it ever talked back she was sure to bring news of the future. Today, I think he only wanted to hear her voice, like molasses, slow and of the body: You're already crazy, Marty. They will have to leave you soon, but summer is coming. Love the small hands of your children while you can, those who curl on my pregnant belly. Nick is growing strong; he has taught your daughters to pray to trees and they spring from them like fresh green shoots. Maybe to exist is to be a kind of possible wonder. Yes. That is the holiness which spreads through our thirteen raised glasses in the small kitchen. To friends, one says, to vodka, another. Laughter becomes a small diffraction which spreads across the white tiles. It is something that later when Corrinne is crying on my couch will let me see her, wipe the cheeks and lift her into Logan's arms as a vapor, those steam vents you walk over on gray mornings which fold beneath your wind breaker, reminding you of how it feels to be warm.
2路路路 Phoenix