Thursday, May 04, 2006

BOWEL PREP

I will spare you the gory details. Suffice it to say Fleet Phospho-Soda is not like any soda I've ever had, and my favorite clear liquid is... Luigi's Real Italian Ice!

It is so nice to hear from everybody again. Thank you for writing, for posting, for sending, for calling, for praying. I can't think of anybody to single out named Denise, but I wanted to post this poem I read today (while eating Italian Ices) and dedicate it to you, my friend. It's been much too long.

Letter to Denise
by Hayden Carruth

Remember when you put on that wig
From the grab bag and then looked at yourself
In the mirror and laughed, and we laughed together?
It was a transformation, glamorous flowing tresses.
Who knows if you might not have liked to wear
That wig permanently, but of course you
Wouldn’t. Remember when you told me how
You meditated, looking at a stone until
You knew the soul of the stone? Inwardly I
Scoffed, being the backwoods pragmatic Yankee
That I was, yet I knew what you meant. I
Called it love. No magic was needed. And we
Loved each other too, not in the way of
Romance but in the way of two poets loving
A stone, and the world that the stone signified.
Remember when we had that argument over
Pee and piss in your poem about the bear?
“Bears don’t pee, they piss,” I said. But you were
Adamant. “My bears pee.” And that was that.
Then you moved away, across the continent,
And sometimes for a year I didn’t see you.
We phoned and wrote, we kept in touch. And then
You moved again, much farther away, I don’t
Know where. No word from you now at all.
ButI am faithful, my dear Denise. And I still
Love the stone, and, yes, I know its soul.

Thank you, friend, for being so faithful, and for putting up with my meditations. And yes, we'll be "in touch" again soon.

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