the habit of being

There’s already a pen on the table when I get there, dumping five thin books of poetry, a pita, and some expensive tea. First I read Yeats, then Marilyn Hacker. I always save Cummings for last. Maybe I won’t get that far this time; maybe I won’t need that much help.

I’m gonna write, I tell myself, I know it. And, despite myself, I’m probably gonna to write about you. Maybe I’d rather write about a tree or a curtain, but I’m probably gonna to write about you. Your thighs are thick and your hands are small; you’ll just have to forgive me for writing about you. You won’t be the first and you won’t be the last, and you’ll have to forgive that too. (I can’t help it.)

. . .

Over a slim volume, in the first house past the trees, you tell me about a girl you knew - a girl you liked and who liked you. You introduced her to an artist and he dated her a couple years. It made you kindof sad. He cheated on her with a poet; you were sorry. And there, in my hands, the poet’s book, dedicated in italics to the artist, the very first poem about their cheating. The story makes the text feel so surreal, and the strange thing isn’t so much that you knew a girl who won a prize and published a book - talked to her, ate lunch with her - but that she, the Author, was only a small character; it was the other girl you liked.

Reading the poems, I understand the artist boy; I would have cheated too.

(Oh, that someday someone might hold a sheet of worded paper between two fingers and say of me “I knew her.”)

. . .

Things to remember: a cat named Kitties, Christina’s World, so many cups of hot herbal tea, too much sangria(!), the Greek cafe, the serpentine walls, fat un-centered cucumber rolls with too much seaweed, Lot of Her Sister, a computer named Feynman, the academical village, music by Morphine, Russian coasters, The Idiot’s Guide to Dating, a poem on an index card on a green dental floss string, a 175 gram frisbee, legal pads full of impressive-looking math, Father’s Day, a lottery ticket, Fresca, September 11th poem, No Commitment, pistachio ice cream, rerouted letters, a square puzzle, artists who work at Radio Shack, Bonnard, Derrida, an orange-haired girl in a mural, it’s Still More Happy than Sad.

Aftons are few and far between, but even my body is a poor substitute for Bjork’s voice.