Story Time

At my favorite park, Ft. Tryon

He can be so charming.
He recites
The Beautiful Changes.
She is enthralled.

I like her, though,
very much.

I want to be her friend,
I think,
but she is his friend,
first.

I smile at him then,
veiling my antipathy,
as the women in the room
want to fuck him,
and the men in the room want to
be him.

She asks him to recite,
yet again,
The Beautiful Changes.
I ask him not to.
Please, no, I say.
I’ve heard it 5,000 times before.
I’ll repeat it for you later,
he tells her.
She smiles.

The women in the room
think I’m a bitch.

The men in the room
think I’m a bitch,
and she thinks,
do you realize how lucky you are
to have a man recite you love poems?

I stand and get myself another drink.

I want to explain,
he’s not saying the words to me,
for me,
or for you,
but, instead,
to hear the melody of them
cascade from his lips,
to imbue them with his breath,
to wear them as his own.

Later, from her bedroom,
I hear him
being Richard Wilbur,
again.

"On a green leaf, grows
Into it, makes the leaf leafier, and proves
Any greenness is greener than anyone knows.”

Anyone knows, she repeats.
A leaf leafier…
I love that line, she says.
Does he write sonnets?
Yes, he tells her, he does.
It is such a beautiful poem, he says.
She agrees,
and her eyes ripen
to abet the words
she doesn’t say.

I hear you, I tell them.
We all laugh.
If you two start kissing,
I add,
I’m going to be pissed.

The man with the glasses
agrees I’d have a right to be.

Later, we arrive home,
check on the pets
and the locks.

Within two minutes
he has,
accidentally
he will claim,
fallen asleep on the futon.

I go to our bed, which used to be just
my bed,
again,
alone.

One Thousand Letters. One Million Words.

The old cemetery.

I have much to tell you, but not enough time. I may write it all down in a book with lined pages. You could read it in the moments we wedge between all the other moments. Small doses. It will be nothing but gibberish; a thousand-piece puzzle spread on your dining-room table. Find the edges first. They're easier. We'll fill in the middle later.

Story Time

Someplace

He had the circumference of a tire from an SUV and gray, flat, shallow teeth (even the front ones) as if he'd eschewed food the past decades in favor of grazing on sand. I've no idea why I'd felt the urge to kiss him, but kiss him I did and it was as repulsive as one would imagine, the cow-teeth slobbery with an overproduction of saliva and the taste of vinegar.

Having kissed him, I could not then figure out a diplomatic way to leave him there, at the table in the tea shop, to run from him, block his emails, change my phone number, move if I had to; anything to not have to see that face again, that swollen body.

He appeared not to notice my disgust and resumed his monologue, like a tour-guide, of "George Washington Slept Here" anecdotes of locations in our city, all of which I'd heard before, and more than twice.

The sun shined in from the window, motes of dust dancing and sparkling in the light, settling, I thought, on the selection of tiny, over-priced pastries that were arranged there, uncovered, like jewels on pedestal plates. He was eating one, his fingers sticky with strawberry and a tiny yellow seed from the fruit stuck between two of his bovine teeth. He licked crumbs and imperceptible dust, I imagined, from his lips, as I smiled at him, all the while rendering inside my head the most painful ways of killing him, many involving pulling out those teeth one by one with various tools and devices.

Why had I kissed him? Maybe it was myself I wanted to kill.

He ate another pastry and the jam dripped like blood from his short fingers. He touched the back of my hand and said, "I'm so glad you are here."

Parting Is Such Sweet Sorrow

At Heather Gardens

I've cleaned house here for a fresh start, and I'll be gone a while.

I hope this finds you well and thriving.

See you soon.

OX

Allison