C. Dale Young

It is not the chambers of the heart that hold him captive, but the hallways of the mind. Why his image burning green and blue persists —the face, the eyes questioning, the shape of his head—is beyond anything I can understand.

for donald justice Beyond the strings of water clinging to the windowpane, there were no cranes, just rain, a sky blurred by wet glass, a pond corrugated by raindrops, and, inside, the smell of naphthalene bars, a Victrola with a broken arm, a spotty daguerreotype, a dusty crinoline— O mildewed, seersucker suits draped over vacant chairs.

Jamaica, 1960 Ignoring the local reliquiae— neoclassical arches in ruin, courtyards, their fountains toppled, prados flourishing in prickle-weed, esplanades no longer level enough to collect rainwater, much less respect for the Imperio de España tarnished by an islander’s mock-British accent— two fisherman returned at sundown. Antiquaries themselves, these fishermen schooled in the currents, the tide, the tunneled limestone of the coral reefs, preferred the graceful curves of the £. At the landing, five children, single file, marched away the birds like soldiers, the learned lyrics escaping their lips: Rule Britannia, Britannia rules the waves.

A fascicle of feathers in my hand, hand frantic and shaking, my arm holding my hand as far away from my body as possible—I am disgusted. I cannot pull out the central stalks of my wings where they protrude from between my shoulder blades, but I can strip every tuft of feathers from them to bare those cartilaginous stems as they rise from my back, stalks stripped perfectly clean so as to better tuck them along my spine, hide them, make them invisible beneath my clothing. I was so foolish then, a teenager not yet able to accept what he was. When my wings blackened, withered, and fell off, I was beyond happy. They would stay dormant sometimes as long as three months. Sadly, they always came back. In the bathroom mirror, I can see myself offering a cluster of feathers to myself, as if to say: Take this from me and I will be forever grateful. But the me that is a trick of light on glass is uncaring, offers them back immediately. If I concentrate, if I think hard on it, I can move my wings, and I practice in the bathroom mirror. But these wings cannot support my weight, cannot buoy me on even a strong gust of wind. What good are wings if you cannot fly? What good is this ridiculous secret I am asked to keep? With the feathers ripped cleanly away, I tuck the stems along my spine. I bandage them down— cloth wound under my armpits, tightly wound around my chest. I fashion myself into an ordinary boy.

And what if I had simply passed you by, your false skins gathering light in a basket, those skins of unpolished copper, would you have lived more greatly? Now you are free of that metallic coating, a broken hull of parchment, the dried petals of a lily— those who have not loved you will not know differently. But you are green fading into yellow— how deceptive you have been. Once I played the cithara, fingers chafing against each note. Once I worked the loom, cast the shuttle through the warp. Once I scrubbed the tiles deep in the tub of Alejandro. Now I try to deciper you. Beyond the village, within a cloud of wild cacao and tamarind, they chant your tale, how you, most common of your kind, make the great warrior-men cry but a woman can unravel you.

“If God is Art, then what do we make of Jasper Johns?” One never knows what sort of question a patient will pose, or how exactly one should answer. Outside the window, snow on snow began to answer the ground below with nothing more than foolish questions. We were no different. I asked again: “Professor, have we eased the pain?” Eventually, he’d answer me with: “Tell me, young man, whom do you love?” “E," I’d say, “None of the Above," and laugh for lack of something more to add. For days he had played that game, and day after day I avoided your name by instinct. I never told him how we often wear each other’s clothes— we aren’t what many presuppose. Call it an act of omission, my love. Tonight, while walking to the car, I said your name to the evening star, clearly pronouncing the syllables to see your name dissipate in the air, evaporate. Only the night air carries your words up to the dead (the ancients wrote): I watched them rise, become remote.

Somewhere outside Kyoto's line, she said, they stumbled across the famous garden of moss, the smallish sign so plain it could have been overlooked. No temple, only moss. So they entered the walkway with little expectation, the silence creeping in, much like expectation. Instead of leading them to the garden directly, two monks had led them to a different task, requested they copy three hundred characters, the ink and paper set down for the task. And this, too, was a practiced form of prayer, left behind for those who had forgotten prayer. The monks left brushes, ink, and bowls of water. They asked the seekers to write, to pray. But prayer, any prayer, wasn't easy. The brush and ink, the doubting hand, made not for simple prayer. And even as I write this, I do not want to pray. This story changes nothing; I do not want to pray.

Women want to save you or want you to savage them. Men want to see what is under your towel. The dollar bills they throw into your cage are all you need to care about because you aren’t dancing in a cage to entertain them. You dance in a cage to make money. I open my towel to the right then whip it back toward midline just as I open to the left: I show them nothing. But I have them convinced I will show them something. There is a difference between men and women— you must look women in the eyes and, if possible, look hurt; with men, you must avoid looking at them altogether, you must focus on moving your hips, which is close to what they are actually watching. Suspended in a cage above the far end of the dance floor, I was not attainable; I made myself seem attainable. These are just the basics. Wearing nothing but a towel, my greyish wings extended to full wingspan, my chest shaved— the clubbers believe I am wearing a costume. It is amazing what people believe. The music is cheaper than a Budweiser. The air is smoke and the smell of smoke mixed with sweat, and your job is to convince each of them you are dancing for no one else. When my shift is over and I pull on some jeans, tuck my wings and bandage them down, pull on two shirts, I can almost pretend I never entered that cage in the first place. Outside on Lansdowne Street, there are people standing in one line or another waiting to get in to clubs. Night after night, the same thing: the waiting never ends.

The pearls, mere reminders. The ocean’s rapid recoil, a signal. The gulls appeared enormous in that way only things from above can— such is presentation of the sudden. If only this were worthy of a frame, the wooden gesture announcing a moment past were cherished. But it was too late for that, too late to answer the surf’s anxious Why? too late to decline the continuous life he had resigned himself, turning away from the grave, that plot being too familiar to so many. Of course immortality had its price: first his staff he had taped back together, then the sleeves of his robe he had reclaimed from the depths, then the magic leached nightly from his fingertips so that now his incantation for a storm brought only a slight breeze, a quick sun shower that frightened only the flowers struggling in the salt air. Now, showing his centuries, he insists: This is the wind out of which I bring clouds. These are my hands that gnarled though they be when lifted to the sky bring rain

One of them grants you the ability to forecast the future; another wrenches your tongue from your mouth, changes you into a bird precisely because you have been given this gift. The gods are generous in this way. I learned to avoid danger, avoid fear, avoid excitement, these the very triggers that prompt my wings from their resting place deep inside. And so, I avoided fights, avoided everything really. In the locker room, I avoided other boys, all the while intently studying that space between their shoulder blades, patiently looking for the tell-tale signs, looking to find even one other boy like me, the wings buried but there nonetheless. I studied them from a distance. When people challenge a god, the gods curse them with the label of madness. It is all very convenient. And meanwhile, a god took the form of a swan and raped a girl by the school gates. Another took the shape of an eagle to abduct a boy from the football field. Mad world. And what about our teachers? Our teachers expected us to sit and listen. In Theology, there was a demon inside each of us; in History, the demons among us. So many demons in this world. Who among us could have spoken up against the gods, the gods who continued living among us? They granted wishes and punishments much the way they always had. Very few noticed them casually taking the shape of one thing or another.