Sending you a prayer all the way from a memory of lovers on a beach in the middle of the Pacific waiting for the sun to fall, waiting for sea levels to rise.

There is a bar in Kihei on that same Pacific island where we eat fried food with the burnouts and alcoholics. Drink a cocktail. Have some fun.

Sending you a prayer from my backyard in Albany, CA. How is the weather in Amsterdam? How late does it stay light outside in the summer? Where have all the people gone? Do you go to Bruges the way that I want to go to Bruges? Does Colin Farrel’s ghost wander the streets?

I pray for you while I walk the canals with the boats’ low grumbling across the water. The very small wakes they leave rippling behind them. The tall Dutch men, the blonde Dutch women. They drink icy riesling by the bottle. Oh how I’d love a glass of icy riesling from the bottle with you in a boat while we gently motor in the black water of the canals.

Instead, I get as high as I can tethered to the dog sniffing for chicken bones, discarded trash (she thinks we are still in Oakland). But there are no chicken bones or trash in the streets because this is Amsterdam and the Dutch are a clean and orderly people. Public transportation works. The city operates at a high level.

There is a bridge over the Amstel that I walk across to get to Sarphatipark. It is wide and black at night with slivers of light flashing like chrome across its surface. Street lamps, homes. My girlfriend is still working. I am the dog. I am tethered to the dog. Tonight she looks for kebabs. De Pijp sometimes is a smorgasbord for dogs. And tonight my spirit takes a step outside of my body and I see myself and the dog from behind and I see that I am not here.

Joel Tomfohr’s writing has appeared in Joyland, Vol. 1 Brooklyn, X-R-A-Y, BULL, Hobart, and others. He teaches ESL to immigrant newcomers from all over the world at Fremont High School in Oakaland, CA.