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The sermon for Aug. 18, 2002 is: a pessimist 1:49 p.m. I am flying. Someone, while I was sleeping, has made a kite out of me, cutting and flaying me of my skin, tanning it, weatherproofing it, and then stretching the leathery fabric over the crucifix of my bones; I awoke from dreams about you and immediately I was aloft, a wind untangled itself from the knot of gales held behind the sun and launched itself into the hollow of my ribcage, pushing itself through the jagged rip down the front of my body. I was sailing above my house, my neighbourhood, my cheeks and my fingers and my toes round and plump from the trapped wind puffing angrily around my empty within; my eyes bulged; my hair swam; I am knotted to the earth by a thin, glistening string, it seems to unroll from the bag that once helf my stomach, a tough, pinkish-grey length of gristle, vibrating in the wind, making a sound not unlike the sounds one makes while licking and sucking a sweet; the string leads away and disappears in the grids of houses that float beneath me, houses smaller and smaller now, green and copper flashes, minute like a circuit board. The wind that sails me pushes a hand up the flap of my throat. My mouth hums, and the wind bellows where my heart was. My mouth hums, my mouth collapses, a great yawn seizes my mouth. My mouth opens, pouring out a wind. Colour pours out of my mouth. Black, and a thick ribbon of dull scarlet. I vomit colour in gay banners that fall slowly over the circuit board fo the world so far away. And the wind that pours out of my mouth, escaping, the wind tears fdrozen words and letters that had caught in my throat over the years. The wind pushes out everything I had ever meant to say out of my throat, the wind pushes out the things I had said and then swallowed into the well of my throat, the wind pushes them out my mouth. I hear them. A rush of consonants pour out, of course, for vowels are smoother and more easily swallowed. I scream a word made of S's and T's. The letters hook on my pallate, my cheeks, my lips, the wind rips them free, pulling their barbs out. And then I hear music. The wind is pulling up the songs that had congealed inside me but that I had kept inside the silence of my herart. I hear music. I hear your name. I say your name. The wind that sustains me is now emptying from me. I try to close the flapping edges of my ripped-out chest, but my fingers and hands hang limply from my arms. I am deflating. I am screaming your name and I am falling from the sky. Strange, but somehow this reminds me of the dream I once had. We were back at Santa Cruz, it was night, and we wanted to go to a movie. (I don't remember what the movie was; it may have been "Casablanca.") We were walking down Formosa Street when Thomas drove up beside us and worked his horn. We invited him to the movie. Fuck, Thomas said, whatever. Ever since Justin left me I don't give a fuck what I do. He took an angry drag from his cigarette. We got into the back of his Volkswagen. It seemed like the interior of a lower-class eff, all riveted steel and mangry dog-fur upholstery. I didn't know you were still upset about Justin, we said nervously. (Suddenly we realised we didn't know Thomas that well; and suddenly we wished he hadn't gotten into his egg; we should have kept walking.) And Thomas snarls, What the fuck do you think he was? And the car jerks. And I realise I don't see you. The car is small, and we are sitting facing away from one another, our knees almost to our chins. And I realise that I don't remember ever actually seeing you. I assume you are just behind me, I can imagine turning to see you smiling shyly at my astonished gaze. Thomas switches gears and we start up the road to the Harvey West cemetary. The hill seems enormous, the cemetary seems unending. I reach for your hand but you're not as close as I had thought. I can feel you are close, but you are just outside my touch, my glance. I say your name. In my dream I say your name. Thomas shifts gears again, jolting us in our seats. We reach to one another. I feel the wind move against my arm as your hand flies past mine. Justin, Thomas growls. He throws his cigarette out the window; it bursts in fireworks on a tombstone. Fucking Justin! He shifts gears again. Where the fuck is this fucking movie theatre!? Thomas screams. There, in the back seat of Thomas's car, I dream everything froze. Thomas was in mid-gear lurch; you and I sat in the back; all the rest of the world radiated from that unmoving centre. There, in that dream of perfect rest, I thought suddenly of Paolo and Francesca da Rimini, the lovers in Dante's Inferno, damned to an eternity of being batted about by a restless storm bound back-to-back; they are thrown, again, again, into the air; and they cannot see each other's beloved face, bound as they are as they are flung through the air. In my dream, I dream I realise that we are like that, you and I. Here we are, condemned to Hell; and yet this is endurable, because even though I cannot see you, I feel you near, I know you are there.
 
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