On Meeting Gabriel

The whole encounter had an otherworldly, surreal quality. Gabriel seemed to me almost as if he were in a kind of purgatorial state—like someone suspended between places, decisions, or versions of himself. At one point in our walk around Austin, in a vacant parking lot, I recited my poem “On Black Holes”. He did not strike me as someone who would appreciate poetry, but for some reason I felt called to do so—as though it were some kind of spell which would aid him in his spiritual journey.