Today when the conversation turned to springtime in Charleston


part of me left the room the way a Catholic soul leaves an Irish body


when death calls, sailing off weightless to an ethereal paradise


taken wholly on faith. Southern charm still has its limits.

It is a habit I have nurtured lovingly that ability to inhabit two


places in a singular space in order to touch the one treasure I cherish


in this world. I have lived so many lives and too died so often


that what the rabble sees as riches have become trifles.

Today when the interrogation took its turn for the desperate


my sense of pain was absent. I felt nothing. I knew everything.


I was everywhere. I was nowhere to be found although everyone


searched. The conversation turned to springtime in Charleston

today but I didn't stay to find out how it ended because there were


more pressing matters and more important conclusions to reach.


I met what was left of an Irishman on the road. He was searching


for a promised paradise but I was moving in another direction.