Massachusetts

We fought in Salem, as she nosed the rented car through streets that stubbornly refused to match the squiggled lines accordioning from my lap. She pressed me for direction as I spun the folding paper like a compass point, urged me for instruction as I traced the lines like Braille, my fingers blinded, tapping out the spell of history; I could not navigate this town. How could I explain the pall of Salem? There’s not an inch on Earth that isn't steeped in blood— corpses pushing up the cobblestones in every town, and the buildings that blunt the sky are girdered in bone. One could travel anywhere and feel that chill, the hovering of ghosts above the landscape, the past’s damp breath against the ear. This town, though, descended like a shroud upon my holiday; Salem, its rectilinearity compressed the ribbon of my spine and sealed my thighs like doorways to a crypt; Salem, its somber abnegation, grimmest reprobation sought to suck me to a hollow shell through which the vengeful cries of God then could be heard. My lover, steering wheel in hand, stared into narrow streets with the eyes of a dark bird. “Which way,” she cawed, “which way?” But mine glowed with the blankness of a woman swaying from a noose, clothing asunder, curses drowning in an airless throat, spirit driven from its home; it circled now above our heads. The useless atlas crumpled at my feet, it could not lead me to a place where threat did not bear down like heavy stones; we fought in Salem.