On the days when the sky is so clear it could be the opposite
of my conscience, I stand beneath its reflection wishing the stars
would come out of their caves and pour their dying words into my mouth
before they explode, just so I wouldn’t feel quite so speechless.
Those are the days when I remember my grandfather’s story,
the one he’d tell us over tall glasses of iced lemonade
with my brother and I sitting like liver spots on his knees,
of how he went barhopping with God one time after his
first heart attack in the hospital. How God ordered a shot
of tequila and then, later, a Bloody Mary with mint leaves,
and my granddad slapped some bills down on the counter
for a scotch on the rocks, and they would tell jokes together
until someone finally got the guts to ask the real questions,
like how come God didn’t build humans with exit signs
out of their heads, or why Eve was made out of Adam’s rib
and not the other way around. My grandfather always winked
when he got to the part where God explained that lightbulbs
were just a mistake he made when he was drunk
and accidentally bottled lightning inside a glass case
instead of the sky. But after the drinks were finished,
God and my grandfather both stumbled home, hobbling on their feet,
and even though my granddad needed a designated driver and God
needed a designated angel, they could have been brothers at that
very moment. That’s the part in the story where my grandfather
stops and stares out the window, and tells us that of everything
he asked God that night, he’ll always regret not asking him
how come it took so long for him to finally show up.