Masculinity

Of what are you afraid? Not a bomb. In Dar es Salaam the men, with guns as long as arms, bent under the car to check   for a ticking and when in New Hampshire a white storm blanketed the car in minutes and the highway transformed into a blinding afterlife, skid red, and sightless sounds of metal colliding. Not of dark, when the motorcycle’s headlight burned out in the dead of night as we wound down a volcano’s steep body, the road’s rocky jaw dropping to a rough sea, the free fall inches from our feet. We fought. Years later, you said the difference between the two of us was that I always thought someone was coming to save me. You said, Meg, if you pull over to the side of the volcano, an angel will be dispatched, a donkey and a husband and a stable will appear. If you stop the car in the blizzard, three wise men show up. If your face moves when they search for bombs, you aren’t mistaken for one. You said, No one is coming to save me. You said, I save myself.                         I said, okay.                         I said, if you are the bomb then I am the bait.                         I said, if I am saved by three wise men, what will this cost me?                         Will I have to drop to my knees?                         Because no man gives salvation away for free.