A Confession

Why is the beginning of a story the discovery of a boy?

A dead one. In the garden.

Under a mound of flowers.

With his arms tied behind him, and his mouth shattered

And his eyes flayed into stars.

A hole in his chest the shape of a key.

Why is the beginning of a boy the telling of a story?

II.

Let’s say there’s a boy who lives at the end of the street who likes flowers; grows them. Tends them in a pot that’s orange to match the table he puts it on, which is brown. Right under the east window to catch the sun at its brightest, its yellowest.

Orange pot, living flower, sun of all colors! in a hierarchy of hope.

And an otherwise happy picture:

What does he think of when he wipes the dust off the leaves?

Where does the water come from at night?

Only he doesn’t leave it.

What do you think of when I say: Beautiful garden of his world.

When he writes in his diary: beautiful garden of my room.

Confession: When I came out to my mom, it was night. We were in the sala. And there was no one else in the house. She had asked the question, so all I had to do was answer. The one who asks the question risks the bigger mistake. So she was in tears and I was thinking of my boyfriend. When she was asking the question, I was thinking of what story I could tell to make her stop.

Let us say the room of the boy is locked and no one can open it because the key is inside. In the belly of the boy. In its tendrilled lock. Having swallowed the key in a fit of fear.

Let us say he reads a book in the morning after watering the plants

In the beginning was the Word

and he does not understand it because

the Word was with God

and he was alone. And the Word was God;

and he didn’t believe it because although

he was in the beginning with God

he was in the beginning by himself standing stiff

on the fulcrum of his heart.

Let us say that this is a story that fixes the parts of this room to the natural movement of the boy’s desires when he rises from his bed of petals to water the world.

Let us say we know his name.

III.

And we have called him it when he was out of hearing,

or at its edges. Murmured our snides to his back

while his arms a-flutter. And his fine hands hold

a tip of his glass for his lip to kiss. And this seemed enough evidence

for us. For the longest time.

while his mother’s pregnant wish for a girl bloomed his aromatic amniotic fluid.