To Mr. & Mrs. Tempe

assing through the outskirts of Tempe today, I decide to spend the night with Anna. She opens her door wearing only a Top Gun tee-shirt and a pair of highheeled flip-flops. I appreciate her transparency. Later that night, I am sitting with my back against the foot of her bed while she lies above me, running her fingers through my hair. I wish I could hear everything she says twice: as soon as she says it and then an echo of her voice bouncing off the wood paneling in front of us. She always speaks as though she were a new planet forming, ideas colliding randomly like huge asteroids hurtling towards one another in space. “I think God has given up on us. He saw the violence, the discrimination, the overall indecency, and he said, ‘Forget it, I’m going to Mercury!’” “Not to mention he kicked us out of Eden over an apple,” I say. “Now as for Jesus, that’s who we could really use. I mean he cared enough to die and then come back. What a madman, but we need that.” “It’s too bad. He’s probably stuck on Mercury.” Grabbing the beer bottle out of my hand, she stands up on the bed, balancing herself on one leg. P