excerpts
from Dear Janet
16 February 2005, 11:28am
dear j,
five minutes of whatever-life lost staring at the only natural light
in the basement: a two-inch ghostly figure throbs on white-painted
brick.
i'm listening to gorecki. she is still dead.
as i type it, 'the power' flicks off and on once, abruptly. i'm proud
of myself because it's almost been a month since i wrote you, &
just as i suspected, you didn't write.
you may not know this: i'm an accordion.
(a THOT: you, pale behind yr bigblack sunglasses,
yr face wearing what i felt, us sitting across each other in yr back
yard, &you'd say, 'ok, enough' when i cried more, &i'd —
like, unwashed swiss chard being forced down my throat,— stop.
& the answer
or the zipper
to yr tent gleaming, &thedog's glittering nose poking one side
then another to be let in
you ... spilled a glass of water
i didn't ... fill my dress)
now my hands're dry i know which ones godownmythroat
G-d own my throat
switchquick, present,
unwrapped passed and you are still
a figure at the top saying (________________...)
gorecki &wherewewere
rewound re wound
8limbly8
19 february 2005, 8:16 pm
dear janet,
i read the namesake by jhumpa lahiri start-to-finish in bed
on my right side, with one bird (shelmerdine) on my shoulder and one
(orlando) on my waist. i dodged shelmerdine's shits all afternoon;
only one hit me square on the cheek. i moved my thumb as little as
possible, but even in that little-as-possible i managed to:
*pull my thumb out of its telfa and gauze wrap, around which is taped
a four-pronged splint; this caused me to have to sterilize the wound
and bandage it for the third time in less than twelve hours. we at
my house are not adept at wrapping our wounds.
*trip while carrying a bird stand, jarring all of its weight to land
on my injured thumb.
i want to send her parents a bouquet on her birthday, which is 25
march. do you think this is appropriate? you said: 'you've suffered
long enough over her.' i don't remember what else, but i'm beginning
to see it's not going to happen like you think it should. and surely
her parents won't have forgotten her birthday. this is irrelevant
because i don't have the money to send a white rose-and-sunflower
bouquet to california. i guess i'm just wondering whether you'd be
for or against it.
that, and i put too much leave-in conditioner in my hair.
janet, and the things i'm not saying.
8d
22 february 2005, 1:17 pm
dear janet,
i force myself outside with for-walking boomboom music and filled-with-tapwater
bottle. suburban sidewalks are wide, but i go slowly, as though on
a tightrope. eventually my strides lengthen, my steps speed to an
acceptable andante. i don't look up to locate the mild sun. i watch
my feet, incredulous.
i follow these sidewalks' veiny whites, marbled dark where branches
shadow, the orange scorch streaks that indicate years of sidewalk
fireworks, until i arrive: i couldn't keep her alive and i'm sorry.
i make myself continue though now i'm walking sideways; the boomboom
music just kids striking soup cans in my ears.
wouldn't it be appropriate if wispy white seeds had floated around
my head at this point? then i could say, ‘and your exit made
sense to me, at long last; you were angry with me because i couldn't
keep her alive.’ but it didn't happen that way, so i came home
to tell you this way.
shelmerdine pulls candy hearts out of a plastic heart bucket with
the white words: 'JUST 4-U.'
his hearts say:
IM ME
LOVE LIFE
IT'S LOVE
GO GIRL
i'm me, i think. he runs away with a green heart: I'M SURE.
.d
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