The Consummation of Dirk

Jonathan Callahan

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Dirk's Retreat:

Then came the summer of Dirk’s retreat—into the mountains? The desert? On a single-sailed raft, adrift in uncharted seas? Dogsledding out over northern tundra? Or was it Patagonia, on austral ice, flocks of penguins drawn to him like angels to the feet of the risen Christ? Do we dare see Dirk fishlike, submerged with open eyes, gliding through turquoise waters, abask in the uterine warmth of some equatorial sea? Picture him roaming rocky Galapagos, newfound avifauna arranged two-by-two, nestling placid along languid outstretched limbs? Or was Dirk lost in the rainforest, the Congo, the Yucatan, a pale titan throttling wet foliage, probing trail-less Amazonian depths, pausing, perhaps, to seek barter with natives? Is he passing Canadian pines? Out of breath atop icy peaks? Peering into pits of volcanic fire and ash? Sahara, Sonora, Siberian wasteland; across Australian Outback with long loping strides; Appalachia, Madagascar, aboard a private shuttle to the moon, spacesuited, on solitary pogos trekking lunar desolation? Could we have sought him out by telescope, if we had known to look, seen him bounding over lucent rock? Or was it into an urban heart, in deep disguise between some city’s walls, sidelocks and beard-sweep masking the unmistakable jaw, covertly pacing our great nexuses of commerce, immersed in motion and din, the stolid desperation, grim havoc after-hours, mortar, steel, glass, concrete, vain erections binding hosts of hungry with their longing, vitality and noise? New York, Los Angeles, Tokyo, Sydney, Rio de Janeiro, Bruges, Cleveland, London, Athens, Jerusalem, Unreal—into the wild, away from it all, to an isolate place, coordinates undisclosed.

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