Billet-Doux
Nobody lied; left to themselves, the waves do find a pattern, and it is an old one, yes: one roar, another. And, in between, a silence only relative—narrow, but not so narrow that it can’t hold, too, at the window, the sound of bees making of an act like thumping against glass or a screen—any same thing, and always— the one habit that it is. How many times have I taken you into my body? is neither a steep bill nor the money, out of nowhere rising, with which to pay it, but—as if as tangible—is a question, that comes toward and then leaves me. From mountains, only a couple of hours, not worlds away, you write of the trees, “each is a lesson in how to live half-broken,” how to draw a life from what at first—rock, and the soil just as hard—seems unable to give any. You have given the flowers new, simpler names: Little Purple, Little Yellow, Little Green…. Eventually, any bruise— however bad—lifts, disperses. I have always admired that about the flesh. I admire you. If I always want to remember to say so more—then forget—I still want to remember. I’m not so sure I want as much, anymore, to understand where we are different…. Just yesterday, in the wake of a day’s rain, I looked out and saw what I’d never seen, a double rainbow. Had you been here, you would have taken a picture, being a man who takes pictures. I thought Only if I tell him will he say he missed something; and I was sorry: aren’t phenomena, if that’s what you want to call them, brief, in general—slight, compared to the ordinary life that meanwhile manages, beneath, to go on? You would say it depends, I suppose—who is asking, who is asked. You’d probably remind me there are other things besides rainbows, ask what about earthquakes, or those moments—like earthquakes—when what matters most is, suddenly, location; when the words of least value, because also the most used, come down to help and where are you— The sea is everything, This morning: blue luck, a stone hand; coins, that all but give themselves up. Carl Phillips