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.

Source: Hollywood & God (University of Chicago Press, 2009)