Reading Letters

Tonight I spread the wrinkle-crinkle paper of you flat upon my desk.
Smoothed your edges and creases until you sighed.
And with a pen of whittled beech I wrote your story new.
Because, of course,
you're mine.

I claimed you in a kiss beside a turtle pond.
A boy lost in a store after years of plotted wanderings.
But I'm a landscape without a map;
I'm a map without a key;
I am the key.

Yet, you're still in my lock.

And what I claim I keep.
What I want I have.
So bring your worries and promises, raise your wrinkles and creases while I laugh.
I would have used my tongue.

It was you who whittled the beech.

Darklings

I left my light on for you.

It's small and a little night-shy but it still tries.

I don't even know if you'll see it, but that's all right.

There's a quietly pleading wish in everything I do.

Breathtaking

It isn't the fear of knowing you could kill me, it's the thrill of knowing you let me live.

One struggling breath at a time.

You take my breath away, literally.

One day I'm not going to beg for it back.

A Stunt of Silly Glee

Here again, once more?

Let me bustle about this dark and cozy room; a pencil behind my ear, a  
candle lit upon my desk, and words at my tongue and fingers' tip.

You know I'm writing to you.  And I know it too.

But what to say?

Once I knelt in soft summer grass and collected cucumbers in a worn  
and ruffled pink plaid apron.

A season later, the very fall that followed that cucumber summer, I  
used the same apron to carry freshly washed apples from their sink to  
my counter.  And chopped them into happy slices to become delightful  
pies.

And wasn't my father proud!

So tonight, a winter's task!  And what have I collected in this loved  
and ruffled pink plaid apron?

Words.  Letters and punctuation and space and silence. So many words!

Here I stand, soft white arms clutching a bundle of phrases and folly  
and kisses- up against my butterfly stomach and still-beating (think  
of it, a still-beating) heart.

And, oh!

Throwing my hands and laughter into the air I've let my apron loose!

For you.

What words will you find scattered about my now nervous feet?

And why am I nervous?

Because if you find the right ones, and arrange them just so, just so...

I may have to stoop to gather the words I've thrown about in a stunt  
of silly glee,

And write again.

Only this time not to you,

But for you.

Songs of the Lost

There is glue in my hair.

Not your common let's-get-high-in-6th-grade Elmer's glue. And not
that weird goes-on-purple-dries-clear glue either.

This is really adhesive, not glue anyway. Double sided and very
sticky. Dispensed from a transparent and pretty blue plastic, um,
dispenser?

The point is, my newly and so neat cut hair has something very sticky
and cumbersome in it.

I only wanted to make you a card.

First, an innocent "I'm happy we're friends card" but oh, oh then.
Then it became the "If I know love it's because of you" card. And now
looking at this mess of scrap-paper and glitter, ribbons, beads, and
brass, I know it has to be a "Good bye" card.

Because instead of saying the right and proper things, I want to feel
your warm, wet lips against mine just once more. What good is the
flare to my back if your hand isn't there to press into it? Where
will I laugh like I did in your arms? And hardest, worst: who will
know me, if not you?

Who will know me? (if not you!)

These are the feelings of fairytales and the songs of the lost.

And now, awash in tears and wishes and a trembling, aching heart, I
can't finish this. Not us, not this card, barely even this thought.

There are things wreaking such havoc on my young and hurtling self
that I can't begin to capture the start of them in these black lines
on this stark white page. Words falling faster than my torn and
hastily-hewn net can catch them!

So, the glue. The adhesive. In my hair. That's what we'll focus
on. That's what I'll think about.

Is there really no better name for the pretty blue plastic dispenser
than dispenser?

And what was I thinking, making you a card in the first place?

Dream Gently

"Dream gently, Girl."


"I'll try, without trying, to dream gently.

You're already away and will get this early in the morning. Two of my favorite things: to be sent to sleep or woken up with an e-mail all my own.

I'll pin it to my nightgown's front, this e-mail. A lost little girl with a please-take-me-safe-to-sleep note.

And when I board the train (with a satchel full of words and frames and paper planes of legal pad yellow) to dreamland or sleepville or wherever wishes take us, the conductor will say:

Oh! That's the girl with the ladder and apple friends.

Two stops and a swap at Dover, to Babylon for her.

Good night all."

Queen of Spain Fritillary

A honeysuckle-yellow and brick house on Laurel Avenue listened by the train tracks as it backed to an alley.

Sidewalks and grass and a wandering garden of cacti, herbs and wildflowers waited for a little girl who waited for a man with a truck and a dog.

Sometimes the girl and the dog waited together for the man, on the cracked and rolling pavement of the dip-dizzy driveway.


Remember when butterflies mattered?

Just large enough to hold the boat, behind the garden and the humble-bowing house, stood the proud garage. An enormous structure up and huge before the girl and dog could find a new place to wait!

And almost as fast as it was new it was old.  Dusty and cluttered and full of secret smells.

Bamboo fishing poles.
Two baby quail cooing and purring about a custom cage.
Duck decoys for dog training.
Pictures of the little girl.
And of course, the boat.

But we're talking about butterflies and there weren't any butterflies inside this boat-filled building.

A secret, then.  Because you've been so kind I'll share it with you!

Between the garden and the garage was a very narrow lane made for secret-seekers.

First you had to believe there was more than what you saw and then you had to be brave enough to go there, even if you thought you might find less than what you wanted.

(Phew!)

I know that's a lot, but secret-seekers must be strong.

But look, there on the roof's ledge just above a scary patch of snarling weeds and precariously suspended on sticky prayers, a chrysalis for the secret-seeker to find!

A tiny, dangling pod of miracle and hope.  A caterpillar wrapped in instinct and trust.

Then the building made sense.  Everything was understood.

Even the guardian dog accepted that the building was so the lane could lead to the chrysalis that would make a butterfly, and she only-just-a-little nervously let the little girl go.

Maybe you're a caterpillar looking for your ledge?

Are you a butterfly already winged and singing gossamer songs?

Or are we still waiting?  The dog after the girl wishing high above to that tiny hope-spun locket?

Well, I'll tell you this.

If a butterfly flew from that pod the girl never saw it.

Not one hint of a budding wing tip.  Not one glistening antennae to broadcast a victory.

Now you see how butterflies can't matter anymore (or yet?), don't you?

You see, the dog still waits for the girl watching the ledge.

And she hasn't finished hoping yet.