Blindfolded

Blindfolded t.m.larkin 

Now This day can fold into the next, seamless like skin. It is the neglected Month of May Dead snake season. We’ll find one on every back road. Gopher or rattler? Only way to tell is up close. I think, "Hands off!" I think, "Chop off the head with a short handled shovel. Even the dead ones have venomous fangs” I see acres of fawnbrush and sand as seamless as my skin. Firs that smell of vanilla when their needles are crushed under foot. Olive trees, Succulents scorched by the sun. I hear The glass -colored ocean break, already cold. I realize no one remained in the back seat when we spun, valves punching through the pan, a forward tumble, pushed by that seldom thought of prince , gravity. Front seat was displaced by back seat. Fence suddenly showed up where back seat had been. We had rolled seemingly smoothly as if on a parade float, but

not silently. Banjo strings broken, the glass ocean must have shattered despite seat belts locking us in an embrace. Sour brown bottles tumbled. I heard screaming with yeasty breath. I wanted to wash my hands but there was not any soap; just light, blood, flesh. The road full of snakes, some writhing, and flies from as far away as Gilroy, even. Horse flies, biting; sticky, I guess. My skirt’s sticky. Our planet feels cut in half. Prince Gravity hides once again. All is still. I fall to my knees. Not to pray. I heard ,then, the radio, alive, like yeast in beer. Crackling voice over, and out loud. "Make an elegant gift! Slit the belly from tip to tail. Nail to a board. Scrape off the meat. Pour on a whole box of salt. Leave in the sun. Cowboy chic accessories…" I ask “Did you hear?” Laughing, I stand. Dima is not smiling. Picking up his scattered teeth, He tucks them into a snake skin clutch. Standing then, beside me pointing. "What does that sign read?" Now, o now in this brown land Where love so sweet music did make Where two shall wander hand in hand Forbearing for old friendships sake Nor grieve because our love was gay Which now is ended in this way "Someone is buried here." "No." The sign old and weathered, makes me forget

what I needed to grieve.  I see the cantina down the beach, hear stringed music, contralto, horns. Trumpets; several, by the sound. We walk along the sand. Family picnicking on a blanket. Young man, dark hair. Wife lovely, smiling up to the phantom clouds. Voices from kids frolic or screech. Bees sting. Flies buzz. The singing, soft as a pleasant light, beckons. The sea is not blue, not gray. Holding hands quietly. "Go no further." Standing now, he is wearing a uniform, I see. Border guard. I point. "The cantina!" "If you take that path you must return through Tijuana." But so Far! The sun will soon melt so very sweetly into the vacant sea. We don't want to walk to Tijuana in tawdry, bloody clothes. Turned back, I see the same sign now reads: Bienvenidos a Mexico. Tiempo no es linear. I am curious.  Lydia is at the cantina waiting whispering, dead these so many years. Glad to see her, boisterously shitfaced, beautiful. Kisses Dima. Leaves lipstick. "Vampire Red." she says, "So I'm off! Try to catch me!" I say “Wait for me!” “Finished waiting.”,

she replies. Hitchhiking away from us for the weekend, a fortnight, a decade. Thumb out, snow falling, light dimming, stars reeling. A Ford, a Jaguar, another Ford. Datsun. Cabriolet, horse drawn! I stand watching her for a week and a day. A helicopter alights. Astounded, we watch it land, almost too quickly to marvel at. "Have you ever?" asks Dima. "Never before!" I reply "Jinx!" "Hush!" Up again to fly over Fryer Hill, Harrison Avenue, The Silver Dollar. No Moon, as the Sawatch rips a jagged gray horizon from the bottom of the sky. I feel she know the best, the most, secrets. "Goodbye!"  Dima's head buried in pillow, half asleep. Arroyo Seco. We’ll camp on this precipice tonight. I ask “Is the car in Baja?” Yawning. Winking. Pause. He has fallen asleep; off the cliff? I wait. Gravity yanks my ankles. He answers, “Leadville, I think.” He’s still inside me, gypsy wind blowing scrub oak, not quite dark, I see The tent

from the inside the color of cinnamon. He whispers, "What if consciousness is a virus?" What shall I answer? Or when? "Then what would you be afraid of?", I say. But I am thinking, “Gravity”. "The way I am self aware; the way I know I'm sentient. I can see myself as another self tonight" He doesn’t sound like himself. "You are only yourself." I say. He replies, "Where is the comfort in that?"  Sleep hard won. "Are you awake?" She asks. "I am now!" I’m blustery. Mother. Babushka. "You burned the rice!" scowling, she says “Again.” Thrusts Ian to me, squalling. "He's hungry! I nurse. Her hard eyes haven’t yet smiled at me. She twists back to the mirror. Faded freckles. Lips thin. Braids her hair briskly, turns it tight like birch. She really only sees me as disappointment. Yet I still have missed her.  Ian and Love in the backseat. Pupils so dilated no light goes in or out; they see only each other. Air can't contain their smiles, their sighs. Suddenly

he screams, crying, "Don’t stare!" I’m not sure where he is pointing. "I am only reading you, my son." He doesn’t hear. I want him to; want him to. He will stay behind. The girl, Love, survives the wreck, deaf to the echoes.  Dima's head on my shoulder, fallen asleep at the drive-in. Damn film is so grainy, as if some vaseline smeared on the lens. I watch us slam down beers behind Tania's barn. I remember we wanted to drive to Point Lobos. Hot day. The smoke from our cigarettes acting like a blindfold. Magpies eat carrion in the haze. This must be one of those American fairy tales. At last, I can see myself. "The cinematography is phenomenal” The loudness of the drunken! Dima awakens. "Now you've ruined it!", he says.  I slide off the gurney. Walking down the hospital corridor, I stride as I I shrink, millimeter upon millimeter. Actively reaching skyward, I think, "Autonomic nervous system on the blink. What will I do without sneezes, without startle, without orgasms?” gravity is no longer pushing; he is pulling

me sky high I brush the dusty ceiling with my blackened toes. Comfortable, it feels like my tribe is calling. Prince Gravity kisses me with cool blind lips.