This morning before my phone alarmed
and before I regained my awareness of being,
Jesus came to me through the sounds of
two cats fucking.
On the other side of my wall,
the wall my bed borders with the
Jesus-loving-praying-singing-rejoicing
waking-me-up-every-Sunday-morning
church-going Caribbeans, there was singing and,
my jell-o mush, pre-morning, mid-dream
pre-duct-taped-bees-alarm brain meshed the singing
with an old picture of Jesus from the wall
above my grandfather’s bed in the hospital
before he breathed his last. It was that Jesus,
clinging to a cross in the middle of the ocean with
waves-racked-and-breaking-the-
monotony-of-everyday-living that came to me vividly,
moving up in my mind the way a
subway train approaches a station. His chin was
looser than I would have imagined. His holy
skin hanging around his jowls like snot
hangs from my son’s nose on a winter’s
day. And there was Jesus. The Son.
Savior: eater of sins coming at my
pre-dawn mind and in his hand: a take-out
menu from the Chinese restaurant down the street
that once put chicken in my fucking vegetarian
lo mein and, lying in bed, bandana over
my eyes, the sound of “let-the-glory-of-the-Lord-
RISE-AMONG-us” coming through my
wall in the muffled way my grandfather spoke
through his no-toothed-gumming-it-up-
old-old-old-old-old attempting-to-talk kind of way,
I realized it was not Jesus at all; it was the sound of
that once put chicken in my fucking vegetarian
lo mein and, lying in bed, bandana over
my eyes, the sound of “let-the-glory-of-the-Lord-
RISE-AMONG-us” coming through my
wall in the muffled way my grandfather spoke
through his no-toothed-gumming-it-up-
old-old-old-old-old attempting-to-talk kind of way,
I realized it was not Jesus at all; it was the sound of
two cats fucking in my alleyway. The same cats,
I suppose, that I mistook for my own
son and daughter playing on a windy day last August, their
howls of laughter ringing through my open
windows that carry in basil-scented air,
and you would think the sound of alleycats
in heat would be different than the Savior
of the world coming to you in a dream, but
I did tell my children a few nights ago before
I put them to bed but after they had
brushed their teeth for a full two minutes, that
the sky is larger than the largest thing they could
ever imagine and that the earth is nothing more than
a molten mess floating through more mess and
that everyone who is anyone will soon be
I suppose, that I mistook for my own
son and daughter playing on a windy day last August, their
howls of laughter ringing through my open
windows that carry in basil-scented air,
and you would think the sound of alleycats
in heat would be different than the Savior
of the world coming to you in a dream, but
I did tell my children a few nights ago before
I put them to bed but after they had
brushed their teeth for a full two minutes, that
the sky is larger than the largest thing they could
ever imagine and that the earth is nothing more than
a molten mess floating through more mess and
that everyone who is anyone will soon be
no more than a toenail clipped in a rainstorm.
