Page 119 of Wayfarers

on some signal we’re not allowed to see, and the noise,

the noise throughout is tinny and insistent

and bellicose, noise you hear in your nightmares, and

if Knox and I don’t talk for the first two hours here

it’s because of that, it’s because he’s letting me

pull him onward by the hand. In all

this magisterial chaos there’s one thing

I remember from when I visited at thirteen—the lull

in the action halfway through. A row of silent

old-timey storefronts and there

in their midst, a hot dog stand. A kid in a paper hat

working the roller grill. There are booths

and a cash register in this one instance of the actual

in a battery of simulations, and because of that

it’s more real than any reality I’ve known.

I dream about this hot dog stand and now I guess

I’ll dream about Knox across from me, trying—

failing—to take it all in. How can you

see through someone else’s eyes?

You watch what they make of the world. Alex Jordan

died and his carousel still spins on, riderless,

into infinity. The show you wrote plays on and on

after you shuffle off into the darkness, stage right.

Knox

There’s so much to say about what we’ve seen that we’re silent all the way to the van. Inside, Sylvie asks, “Can you pull up Maps on my phone?” and then we look at each other.

You told Sylvie you wanted to attach yourself to a girl with a map. You oaf—way to leak the contents of your brain everywhere.

“You wanted to attach yourself to a girl with a map, huh?” Sylvie says, like she’s reading my mind. “Here’s a map, barnacle.” There’s an impish lilt in her voice.

“I mean.”

We’re back on the road, headed south.

“Is it a seafaring lass you seek, Knox? A pirate queen? You looking for your very own Anne Bonny?”