Epilogue

Becoming a Prophet

DEFINITION

It’s not predicting the future, but saying what we know but won’t accept. We’re made of clay, and we smell of it, dampness funneling from our palms. Practice breaking news bluntly—apologies dull the blade. Learn to sit quietly; any place will do. Bus stop, library. I see my fellow prophets-in-training on the streets and recognize them by the way their eyes hold mine.

LOVE

His name a spell in my mouth. His body a sun-warmed rock the surf cast me upon. His mind a city I waited long to visit: patter in the marketplace, silence in sacred shadow. He is bright forsythia, ship’s running light, seed of the world’s oldest tree. His quiet sleep a desert in bloom.

READY

Gone the snap and hiss of the radiator, the map on the wall with its running stitch of sea routes, the stack of useful plates, eggs unbroken in their crate, the complacent jug of milk. Silenced the books on the shelf, and the books below them. I hang the walls with linen, plait a mat for the floor. I light a fire beneath the kettle. The dusty air dances, rich, in the gilded afternoon light.

COUNTRY

Walk through the woods, past mice gnawing antlers for the calcium, thickets of blackberry canes, crimson vines twisting up a pine snag. High in the dead tree, the lozenge-shaped hole the woodpecker pounded. At my feet, the pile of wood dust rasped by a termite colony. Dead branches creak in the wind; wind scours my face. Distractions abound. What do they teach?

CITY

The shop windows are living dioramas; behind the mannequins in whispering toiles, a shifting frieze of clerks and customers. The lunch crowd lingers over avocado salad, dishes smeared with leavings. Outside, a stoplight dangles like a pendant on a cord. Exhaust rafts from tailpipes. I must notice what others won’t: on the sidewalk, yellow jackets swarm a bit apple.

WHAT WORK AWAITS

There was once an old man, called “the Old Man,” who had no feeling in his face, a quality that made him the ideal subject for many experiments. Duchenne du Boulogne (1806–1875), a scientist, clipped wires to the folds of the Old Man’s cheeks, stimulated his facial muscles with electric shock, and photographed the results. Based on these experiments, he claimed that the Duchenne smile is the only one, of eighteen possible, to occur because of “simultaneously experienced enjoyment.” The captions read, “Smile Caused by Electrical Shock,” and “The Duchenne Smile.” Is there any question which is the evil work? A false smile wrenched from the body by pain, even unfelt; I must strive against this.

PRAYER

Late at night, the ceiling creaks with the steps of the restless lovers upstairs. Four blue pilots glow in the kitchen, the computer drive glimmers green, and outside, across the street, a floodlight sputters on blue snow. These are the votives of this place. I touch broom straw to burner and watch gray strands of smoke rise like the breaths of those who wait patiently in the cold. I would make all a supplication, lungs’ each press and stretch.

DAILY OFFICE

Separate like from unlike, set and reset a timer. Move silently through the day, past the white blare of television, the consumptive sigh of passing cars. Bleach hums in the porcelain sink. Keen a blade with whetstone and oil, cut parallel furrows on the wooden block; make tile’s graph gleam. I have tried to still my mind. This is work I have enjoyed, and do. Ropes of water unbraid from the spout.