by Iliana Rocha, Illustrations by Molly Brooks

Scripture

But it also felt like I learned what stairs were for the first time. Understood what my feet mean when they say take a step forward, but stay in orbit. I fumbled my way up toward the humble cathedral where all the angels I could name by heart held up the ceilings. As I walked through each room, wood lit itself in new fireplaces, & a computer with an exhausted hard drive dared to remind us of the past. I shooed away its echoes. A space better than a kitchen had all the fruit, cherries, & a colony of apricots. You cut up a pineapple, & it was the first time I saw a pineapple. You fed it to me, &, suddenly, sugar was invented right there in my mouth. When the water boiled, it was already boiled. The forks & knives didn’t rattle like forks & knives, but like tomorrow’s bones. When you separated here from there, all I saw was a small, steady stream, & when you showed me the forest, there stood the first-ever tree. When you guided my hand toward the oregano & told me to feel it, I had never known touch. You pulled the moon down from the top of your closet shelf from its place near the photo of your dad so that I could see it up close. But because you are gentle & don’t want to keep things that aren’t yours, you opened a window & gave it back to the night, where we could watch it be full & bright together. & then you grew the heliotrope that blossomed & found its way to my body, & when all was wet & lilac, the ground pulled me to it, remembered me having always been there.

Taco & Tequila Festival Knoxville, TN 

The best method for honesty is to holler above the local cover band’s version of “Don’t Stop Believin’,” a guaranteed fan favorite. Around us, the crowds are so dense that in the obscurity, there is nothingness—each guitar lick weakens into whisper, every drunk woman’s laughter softening into that which passes through the evening as the wind behind my back I mistake for your hand. It is absence we notice, not presence of. Wasn’t that Stevens’ great project of the early 20th century? & what is ours? We agree—it is love. What registers through the familiar chords is something about irises, the purple has redefined itself as purple, as you describe how hard you dug in order to keep beauty perennial. I don’t know if Stevens believed in beauty, if he even thought it real. In my act of looking at you, a plea for actuality, all through a country song I can’t remember, let alone identify, because with you, there is no periphery in my attention, & maybe this is Stevens’ project. What did I confess above the commanding twang & two-step? Trying to write you, I fail. Instead, there are the flowers—the fuchsias, the delicious, unexpected mauves, the corals, the violet in technicolor. Instead, I praise the pork soaked in citrus. I feed you a tortilla chip soaked in my favorite jalapeño dip sourced from Texas. I drink what is left of your margarita, & the tequila is a little strong, even for me. I hear Metallica unravelling into minor scales. Instead of getting closer to the stars, a cop flashes his light in our faces for kissing so much the bulb burns out.

You are every flow-

er. You are every flower.

Every flower, you.

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