The Largest Tourist Shop You Will Ever See In Your Life

Virginia was a loft we broke into. You told me of its resurfaced cobblestone brickwork and how, in 37,’ the worst recorded flood enveloped the high rises like a lost art, “It became a tourist attraction for a mediocre 2 months,” you said.

In my dream that night, I was there kayaking Thomas Barleby across the barren sea, through clumps of sandstone, chalcopyrite, bubbling acid, past insects on dead things in hopes to top Closest Way To China.

By day, we floated along sawdust pools; the kitchen pleated, the storm door kohled and drooling. As your hand curtailed the length of mine, I pulled along shadows from your veins and thought only of Autumn – when creeks chase the hardwood floor underfoot and chills are remedied with sweaters. We stopped in front of dilapidated brickwork; a hole with sharp moons pouring through. You scratch at its surface. And the loft flaked off in chunks, plunging into the sea below until nothing was left except for us on a small patch of balcony several stories high. You laughed and laughed. I looked over the side; waves as big as my childhood drawings of waves. Was I ready to plunge into the sea? Pinch my nose? Forget everything I knew of survival? Did it even matter now?

15 years from now, you will by a painting from at a rest stop in the middle of what you will describe as, “God knows where” called The Largest Tourist Shop You Will Ever See In Your Life. You will buy it then; mount it in your study, saying, “Such places remind me of Virginia.” And then, you will have finally said my name.