This is called "Slow Night."
"God's away right now, but he'll be right back,
a voice whispers.
I slink into the bathtub, steam rises like incense
off the water.
My dick is engorged.
It's all right, another voice tells my left ear.
Go ahead and do it.
I bite my lip--" you know, mind you, I'm 12 years old then.
[LAUGHTER]
I have other ways now.
"I'm too scared.
I bite my lip, close my eyes because I'm too scared to look
and listen instead to the small waves,
look the edges of the bathtub and spill over.
When I stop, a voice says, God saw.
The burning bush is going to chase you.
[LAUGHTER]
I drain the water, dry off and think,
there's too much steam for God to see.
Their front yard, it's still hot and except for the crickets
and the flower bed quiet.
I start up the street, where is everyone?
Before my bath there were kids and parents and dogs
licking pie tins.
Mom was watering, and Rick my brother
was leaning in the car fender looking cool.
I flinch when a sparrow shifts in the holly bush.
God, I'm in trouble.
God made everyone disappear.
Or so I believe until I see Mr. Gritz on the front steps,
and he's sweating a mouth full of hot dogs.
Judy his wife is just as greasy.
She flicks a finger of sweat at me as I pass.
She laughs, coughs, and a noise like a wheelbarrow of rocks
rattles in her chest.
I ask, where is everyone?
Judy shrugs and says, they've gone to hell.
They laugh and rattle the rocks in their chests
and a piece of food falls from Mr. Gritz's mouth.
I pretend to like them, I laugh, take a step back, laugh,
take a step back until I'm out of sight,
but thinking that their marriage is as old as trees.
Still, I want to get married when I learn to drive a car.
Andy, an older kid on the other street
said, it feels like chicken after he told me
that I went around not liking girls very much.
I kept picturing a hot and bald salt and pepper
chicken attached to my dick and me in bed
and my brother in the bunk above me asking, what's going on?
[LAUGHTER]
I tell them I can't stop sweating.
Of course, God is looking.
And he whispers and shouts loud enough for mom to hear,
of course, God is looking.
And he whispers and shouts loud enough for mom to hear.
Gary, leave their chicken alone.
Andy from the other street, he should know.
He had his way with the daughter of the peanut man, a poor guy
who works the Fresno mall.
One leg shorter, tiny American flags
in his hat and no one buying because in our town
we like sunflower seeds.
And whom I helped to carry cardboard to a vacant lot
here he said, here over here.
We stomp the cardboard into a bed for his girl instead
of brick at each corner.
My girl will love me for the trouble he said and said,
the hole I dug is for Cokes and seeds,
though, she's bringing free peanuts.
But where is Andy now?
Where are my brother and sister and mom?
It's eerie when there's no one around to beat you up.
And the loud noise and I'm thinking
that it's Mr. Gritz just breathing deeper,
except I see Mr. Wise's truck and my mom in the cab
and the kids in the back full of racket.
Cross-eyed Johnny first to jump out shouts at my shoulder
that a house on Belmont Avenue burned to the ground.
And though no one died at least three people
cried, and ain't that better than nothing.
God's going to have his way in time, in time."