Sensibility
7.2003

Sometimes when I am driving home at night, nearing central highway, which isn't a highway, I can smell sulfur. The smell even comes thick right into my house. I've been told it's from the smelter in Mexico when the wind is blowing north. It's a swampy smell but it doesn't disgust me. Maybe because I grew up near marshland and low tide really stinks. I'm used to dank smells. I was told the smell of the marsh is a pretty near perfect mix of life and death exposed and that the moon dictates the tides. Who could hate a smell like that? At first I was told the only smell around here was from the cannery - the chili factory. But roast peppers smell good don't they? Not like low tide. Then I thought maybe the name Sulphur Springs valley comes from the smell. But how can you have such a wet smell in a dry place? It's the desert. Then I asked around some more and I heard about the smelter. So that's what I guess it is.

Sometimes when I'm sitting on my porch at night I hear a sound that is almost like peepers but it doesn't seem possible. I think is that electricity going through wires?

Maybe if barbed wire fences could sing or be played that is what it would sound like. I can picture the barbed wire strands from here to Mexico vibrating and jumping and making this chorus. What is that sound? It couldn't possibly be bugs but barbed wire can't sing can it?

Tonight when I was driving home I was thinking about men. How much I love men. Their big hands and square thoughts. Thier desire for solutions. Thier desire for sex. I was thinking about that and a beautiful ring-tailed cat ran in front of my truck and by god I just barely missed it or maybe I ran it over. I didn't hear a thump or a bump. Such a beautiful thing. A cotimundi I think. A small one. That tail just straight up. I kept wondering if I killed it. Even thought I should turn around and check but I didn't. I kept driving. I took my turn off of highway 80 and started thinking about men again. One or two in particular. When I made my next turn ten or so miles later I saw something ahead in the road. Is that a dog sitting in the middle of the road? I slowed down, I didn't want to hit 2 creatures in one night. As I got close I saw that it was a giant owl just standing there. Then he flew up into a tree. That's a big owl. huge. amazing. And there was that sulpher smell.

I turned onto my road. I thought about my sister. How she had had a baby today. I have a new nephew named Andrew after my dead twin brother. I didn't think about my new nephew I thought about me. How I was reserving that name. I thought about how I wasn't in love. That the reservation seems to have expired. How'd that happen I thought? That's good that's a gift. Give them the name. Andrew.

My twin hadn't lived long. Just a week or so after birth. But there was that wombtime. Once a twin always a twin. It s like losing someone at sea. Or being at sea and then losing them right as you come into port. Its hard to put it to rest.