In Praise of the Rim Job

We once drove 900 miles—from California to Idaho
—in a borrowed car, the dead-drench of summer
slicking our skin with its own salt, to witness
an eclipse’s totality. The darkened sun, the sky
punched through. We barely made it, but did
on duct tape & faith. Bear with me. I know how easy
it is to forget a journey for all its destinations. We—
trans & crippled & visible as cross hairs—crossed
five state lines to see the convenient mechanism
of the day break down. Magnet passing over
a TV screen. But what we could not have expected was
the darkness. Jay blue deepened to false-dusk
& nightjars split into song; how the moon remade
the palace of the sky. The air still, but cold
as autumn breeze. A corona is a crown but also
the light that wreathes a punctured star. Each solar
flare—frayed nerve endings of decaying brightness.
A confession: Even as the heavens glimmered
apocalyptic, my first thought was of a lover, thighs
horizoned across a mattress. Body tongued as if
it were the eucharist. Lips pressed to this fleshy crown
that canonizes the saint of my tongue. Ring of fire, tiny
halo, slot in the confessional door. I am inclined to call
this holy: skin-muffled blasphemy, wet & near
-silent prayer

Read more from Issue 18.1.