Pew(44)

Something about the way Hilda’s hair had been tightly contained on the back of her head made me feel the pressure and presence of every person who had never been born, and even in this large room nearly full and still filling with people, even in this crowd, I felt that infinite crowd, all those other selves that both existed and did not exist, lives both impossible, unborn, never born, and still present.
The few lights in the room, already dim, grew dimmer. Baskets of black scarves were passed around. Everyone took a scarf, tied it over their eyes, and through the crowd I noticed Nelson watching everyone do this, before doing the same—covering his eyes and letting his arms go slack at his sides. Young men at the edge of the room pulled on ropes as pulleys above us creaked, and wide white curtains came down, separating some people from others, grouping some of us together, creating soft hallways and rooms within this room. The air in the room tightened, seemed to resist my lungs. I tied the scarf over my eyes as everyone else had. The shuffling of the crowd stilled, then stilled more. I heard the fans shut off, a solidity taking over, then a bell sounding several times.
Many voices began at once—some I seemed to know, some I almost remembered, some I could have remembered, some I did not know, some I thought I did not know, some I recognized, some that sounded like my own, some that seemed to belong to people long lost to me, some that sounded like people I would later know or one day become—but the words were unintelligible at first, too far away or spoken too quickly, too softly, too warped. People began to move, the steps tentative at first, then faster, hands held out to blunt the meeting of one body against another, shoulders lightly knocking together, feet stepping on feet then correcting themselves.
I’ve been lying //

            Cheated on last year’s //

                                             with her for several months //

            may have taken //

Half sentences or full sentences, men’s and women’s voices, defiant or sorrowful, spoken quickly, spoken slowly, they came like a chorus, shared a sort of cadence—
I don’t tithe as much as //                  judge them //

                     I cheated on //

         charge blacks more so they won’t //

given bribes to some at the //

               not sure I’ve ever been grateful //

                                    my brother’s lawn mower and sold it //

         dream of divorce //         I take everything for granted //

she would die sooner rather than later //

            I judge them //               not sure I believe in God //

I beat that little girl //                        people at the courthouse //

don’t want to help them //

                           I cheated on my algebra //

         still haven’t told him yet // I’m not sure I love my wife //

I stole groceries when I was //

         for some months I regretted having the baby //

passing judgment //                  I’ve been testing God all year //

I killed her pony because we couldn’t afford to //

                                                took cash from her purse //

curse every day // I hit her sometimes // won’t stop watching porn //

            really don’t like reading the Bible but I pretend //

I never want to go to church //

            I shot three squirrels for no reason // killed some //

real drunk and lied about it //

                           strongly covet my neighbor’s // hate the festival //

My business partners don’t know I take more //

            feeding him expired chicken salad on purpose //