One day I know I shall unlearn you

but for now let me quote to you reasons why

I’d rather not.

1.

“your eyes are full of language.”

2.

“Oh, I don’t mean you’re handsome, not the way people think of handsome. Your face seems kind. But your eyes — they’re beautiful. They’re wild, crazy, like some animal peering out of a forest on fire.”

3.

“I don’t know how to tell you what I feel. I live in perpetual expectancy. You come and the time slips away in a dream. It is only when you go that I realize completely your presence. And then it is too late. You numb me.”

4.

“In a way, you are poetry material; You are full of cloudy subtleties I am willing to spend a lifetime figuring out.”

5.

“If I loved you less, I might be able to talk about it more. But you know what I am. You hear nothing but truth from me.”

6.

“when you tell me to come, I will come, by the next train, just as I am. This is not meekness, be assured; I do not come naturally by meekness; know that it is a proud surrender to you; I don’t talk like that to many people. ”

7.

“You have no idea how stand-offish I can be with people I don’t love. I have brought it to a fine art. But you have broken down my defences. And I don’t really resent it.”

8.

“I have no fear of losing you, for you aren’t an object of my property, or anyone else’s. I love you as you are, without attachment, without fears, without conditions, without egoism, trying not to absorb you. I love you freely because I love your freedom, as well as mine.”

9.

“I love your feet/ because they have/ wandered over/ the earth and through/ the wind and water/ until they brought/ you to me.”

10.

“Take me to your trees. Take me to your breakfasts, your sunsets, your bad dreams, your shoes, your nouns. Take me to your fingers.”

–

1. Anne Sexton
2. Charles Bukowski
3. Henry Miller
4. Franz Kafka
5. Jane Austen
6. Edna St. Vincent Millay
7. Vita Sackville-West
8. Anthony de Mello
9. Pablo Neruda
10. Margaret Atwood

Fever Dreams

1.

Her body floating spread-eagled in a pool of water tinged a bloody orange by the dying light. Her eyes like marble, cold and opaque. Popping, staring straight up at the darkening sky. It begins to drizzle. The raindrops falling into a million ripplings, dancing against her fingertips. The rain like mercury spilling into her dull gray eyes, swirling into one color, like poisoned milk.

2.

Dawn chorus rousing the late October morning, cool and breezy. Soft sunlight kissing the potted roses in the balcony. A book lying supine on already rumpled sheets. A plate of deviled eggs and crusty pugon-baked bread on the table. By the French windows, you, sipping hot tea. “These mornings are made for reading,” I say, burrowing under the covers with the book. Drawing the curtains back, you place the teacup on the tray. “Well then,” you say, like a cat purring, “love me and I will fill all your days with poetry.”

3.

We lie under the bed, my friend and I, with time and shrapnel stoppering her heart. “Wait with me,” she says, holding my hand, “until my blood dries up.” I do, keeping still as they continue to bomb our city. I’ve grown deaf to the explosions and the sirens. I hear only the sound of the phone ringing, though who would call us, I can’t imagine. I pick up after a while, whispering, hello, she’s dead, and let the receiver clatter on the floor. I crawl to the window and peek through the blinds, watching dust motes in the shifting light. Hundreds of planes, like paper cranes, catch and open fire in the pastel-hued daybreak sky, painting the horizon red. My room is blue, the bed low, but not so low that I can’t fit under it. Falling debris quake the earth. I quiver.

4.

A day of walking along the Great Wall of China, carrying only a water bottle, an umbrella, and a lomo camera.

A week in the edges of a Shinto temple halfway up a mountain in Kyoto—sweeping the yard, drawing water from the well, listening to monks chanting.

A month of waitressing in a red-brick café in Bologna, after comp lit classes at UNIBO.

5.

You! Slap plaster over this broken open crypt. I do not want the corpses fouling up the air. Seal out that sliver of moon, showing through a crack in the ceiling. Seal it up! Shutter the windows. Lock the door. Will day be dark and air stale? Yes! And quiet.

6.

“…reaved urn in the old house in Talisay.”

7.

Lips trailing on skin as smooth as a mango peel, and smelling as sweet. The lingering scent of breakfast: coffee and caramel. Flesh soft as down. Hair wet with dew, fresh from the shower (green apple and grape). On the pillow, trace of patchouli.

8.

Found during a diving expedition in a shipwreck under the sea: a seal-like creature with jewels along its sagittal crest and a spine lined with crowns of prismatic glass on a silvery furcoat. A chest of 148 books, each containing a forgotten folk tale. A woman sleeping in the log cabin, surrounded by seaweeds and barnacles and eerie green light.

9.

A day of no emails.

10.

A midnight heist, 1920s film noir style. Three slick villains with a vagabond and his daughter. Full moon light, old mansion. The teenage girl and a handgun. A woman in a negligee, awoken by a full bladder. A startled shot. Black blood on silver and hand-me-down lace, splattered on a head of blonde curls and a pale face. A locket. Revelations. Once again a motherless child.

Mrs. B on the last dinner with her ex-husband

Everyday I used to ask him if he’d be home for dinner and everyday he’d say he would. And though most of the time he wasn’t, I’d still believe him (because sometimes he would show up—with red roses and laughter and wine—and I’d tell myself, what if he comes tonight?). So every afternoon I’d cook and every evening I’d set the table for two and wait until I couldn’t stay up any longer. On most nights I’d wake to find him already in bed with me, and the dinner I’d made still on the table.

On the eve of our last anniversary, he said, let’s eat out—and so I dusted off my slingback heels and wore my red dress and perched on his arm. But he had only just sat me at our table and the spring rolls were yet to be served when his phone rang and he left and never came back that night.

Sitting at that table and staring into the candlelight, I imagined—he was home and I was in the kitchen. “La Vie en Rose” was playing on the radio above the fridge. I had my apron on, and I was slicing onions and mincing garlic to sauté. I set them aside and picked up a carving knife, small for its kind but newly sharpened and heavy in my hand. With a quick thrust I buried the blade in my chest, cutting through bone and cartilage, carving out my heart, which I placed on the cutting board. I sliced it and diced it, felt the flat, cold steel riding forward and back and down, the edge clack, clack, clacking against the wood while La Môme Piaf sang of love. I sautéd the garlic and onion in olive oil and threw the bits of my heart into the pan, adding hoisin sauce, pepper, salt. I took it off the fire and served it to him, garnished with a twist of orange peel and a sprig of basil, on a plate of Blue Danube china. He considered it as he did his Cuban figurados, his vintage Chablis, his gorgeous girls Friday—with the senses of a connoisseur. With a fork he brought a morsel to his lips and took a tentative bite—then gobbled up the rest of the dish like a barbarian, grinning up at me with dark sauce dribbling from the sides of his mouth.

I could not shake the image out of my mind—that was when I decided I never wanted to dine with this man again.