Doug as Joseph B.

(for Doug Steward)

I guess you're in your airplane now, having chosen a ritual leather helmet and a bearskin rug for ceremonial reverb. You crash you in the steppes and your hooded tribespeople rush out in fur days later to retrieve you. Sometimes it is minutes and sometimes it is days. I don't want to rush you, but I blow gently from far away, a near stranger's pursed lips, and all your friends blowing red candles into flame in imaginary chapels everywhere. We float you and you heal you. It's all you. Your voice telling me things in my kitchen, conversational, before I remember. You've wandered out beyond us, your brother's rib a thread tied to your rib. We'll see you when you're back. No one is alone.