Deep Deuce

As phantoms direct life from the shadows, I feel I leaned on something, and it broke. My father on the porch with his crosswords said, this must be what it feels like to be dead; When I returned from the dead there was no one to greet me, but still you are glad— I wander the ruins the way my tongue wanders my missing teeth, the bricks and mortar of Deep Deuce rotted like molars in an ancient mouth; Here Charlie Christian might have walked— The astrologer counseled patience and creative imaging: Step One: Visualize an object that symbolizes the accursed influence. Picture yourself throwing it into a furnace. Step two: Visualize the person who is responsible for the curse. Imagine one end of a rope is tied around your waist and the other around that person. Picture yourself cutting the rope with a chainsaw as you call out, “You have no power over me!” Step three: Repeat twice a day for eleven days . . . You visualize her green boots inside the furnace . . . —No. You are in a crematorium and you see her perfect and corruptible body on a tray sliding into fire; Then you see yourself cutting the rope that ties you together with a saw; And then at last your own imperfect and corruptible body—I mean, me—calls out and I jump in after her.