The Gulf Stream

“I learned living requires a kind of discipline; / A reverence for the law of gravity. // But I have wanted, / As I want when I look at the painting, / To unhouse my body.” – Terrance Hayes

I don’t remember for which class I purchased Hayes’ Hip Logic. But sometime between 2001 and 2005, I placed brackets around this quote from “Self Portrait / Vision”.

Hayes, while looking at “The Gulf Stream” by Winslow Homer, sees a mirror. Himself. Someone like him? A man adrift. Floating in a place but not a pinpoint on the map. Someone is watching death swell around him – the graying horizon and cresting fins. Unaware or ignorant that he is surrounded, he squints at something else.

Maybe he see what happens when we peel back our salted and burned skin. He’s watching us crawl out of our aching muscles and surrender what’s left.