Luxuria, and: Faith, and: Camp

Abstract

Luxuria, and: Faith, and: Camp Despy Boutris (bio) Luxuria The secret to sin is to do itin secret. You & I learned secrecy young— two girls taught to swallowour hunger—so we meet up at nightfall, once we hearsnores & the last lights have gone out, our houses darkas the devil. We walk down the dirt roads, cursing this townfull of coal miners & farmers & churches, cursing the way we'll likely never leave.Grass sprouts up along the asphalt, the airstained with petrichor, & I'm guided only by the hummingstreetlights & starlit sky. We find each other at our meeting place, the lakesouth of me, north of you, each of us [End Page 61] scrambling over the wet rockstoward the grassy hill & willow grove where you've laid down the knit blanket.Walking toward you, I feel the grass & mud against the soles of my feet, find yousitting in the crotch of a tree, & as soon as we catcheach other's eyes, we're each saying Here is my shirt, here is my hair, my hands,my mouth, take it, take me, right here, right now. Your eyes glow like a glowstick,your jaw sharp as my pocket knife. & you strip me, nearly strippingme of my similes as our breaths turn to fog, the cool drizzle falling onto your curls,your half-shut eyelids, our skin bright as the waning moon, the lake sparklingsilver. Your sharp thighs shear mine, with the seawater tasteof skin, the scrape of teeth against lip, fingertips meandering down spines, tracingmandibles, losing ourselves in our lungsounds. Warm kisses pressto collarbones & shoulders & wrists, [End Page 62] our breathing a windstorm, bodies beggingfor collision—some desire to rub ourselves together till we makesome sort of fire. As your mouth latches onto skin that hardly anyonehas ever seen, rosy even in this low light, we gasp like people drowning,& I try to think of a word for the way I want you—wildly, maybe.Like a monsoon. Though I know that so much rainfall can cause more harmthan good, that what's at first erotic then erodes—love collapsing like thehills that gave way after so much rain & mud last winter. How too muchof something can turn deadly—like those found dead in their crumbled homes. & so muchwant is sinful, I know, so we beware of the fires & floods. We lie togetheronly in darkness, warm & wet as steam as droplets of water spatter our faces,swallowing what we can of each other. [End Page 63] Faith I knew the dying was coming—knew her heart strucktwelve because I couldn't sleep, could only gaze out at the hallway,past my door as it creakedon its hinges, the wind outside the open window runningits hands over everything in sight.If I closed my eyes, I could pretend it was my grandmother, runningher fingers through my hair,& I knew my father would call soon, stranded at the hospitalwith his dead mama, not wanting meor my brother to see death so young. I knew the lawyerwould stop by, present us with herwill. I didn't know she'd leave my brother her rocking chair,& me: my favorite breakfast—her recipe for buttered biscuits. Didn't know my father's facecould crumpleor how hard I'd sob, or the way [End Page 64] my mother's smooth palmwould do its work of soothingme as we watched the coffin descend into the ground, my grandmothermaking her way into eternal life,as the priest promised. I wish I believed in eternal life.It's too much work to tryto imagine a realm without darkness, no croakingtoads, nothing with claws.It's too hard to believe in her cheering for me up above.But how temptingit is to have faith in her floating like pollen above us,the clouds blurring her angles,her body all tangled up with God's. Camp Do you want to try it? she asked,to see what it's like? At camp for the...