#57

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"There are stacks of notebooks that speak of years of aborted efforts, deflated euphoria, a relentless pacing of the boards" (Patti Smith, Devotion)

R and I
well,
we could go one for hours it seems.
round and round in circles
till there's no longer any seams or cracks
in the street.
children scream in the schoolyard outside, we
look out at them fondly from time to time.
my book and a copper vase of flowers from P rest
on her bedside. the bookshelves on the left and right
are one away from caving in, buckling.
a note spelling out L-O-V-E
in curled lines is stuck above her head. it's yellow. there's more
from Ida, Lorna, and Aster
they dot the room, lighting up each and every corner,
you've never been somewhere so vibrant.
and there's small portraits of the yellow house with figures drawn all around
these too are taped to the walls.
it's warm and brilliant yet she apologizes for the mess,
it's nothing, just a few stray shoes and socks, nothing. I
shake my head insisting so.
she herself is writing letters. she's in pink. I posted one of them for her on my way out.
I grabbed a stamp from the white wicker basket by the hutch that holds all the keys,
P's sailing hat rested on top of them.
I usually keep mine in my wallet.
R is mostly bedridden, the plight of a broken hip.
she says, "let's shoot the wind," while lamenting the tale of a duck.
I've come to sit for a while.
it's now when we speak of luck and anger, like
they're the same as the weather.
it's sunny, but it's raining petals and R is no longer angry, not really.
she tells me how she once spilt her secrets out in ten with thin paint,
I think mine live deep in fine print, whether I want them to or not.
and then I recall something someone else said, maybe it was Patti or Susan or Joan, about how we each maintain a specific emotion in our text.
now I look for it in everything--
the common throughline.
I think that the most angry of people
must be the ones who reveal it the least, I
can't explain why, so I keep that thought to myself.
and as for luck, I think it's similar.
the people with the most hardly ever
have to employ it or wish upon it.
it's nature at work, somehow.
R and I speak of how we trick circumstance in all our little ways
and how we get over ourselves.
both anger and luck are mystical things I determine.
and that's when she asks if I'd help her go through her closets one day soon.
you won't understand if you haven't met R
but beyond those mirrored doors is a trove.
and somehow I've been granted the key, she
trusts me and likes me
and wants some of them to go to me.
"do you like fashion" she asks
"I'd be silly if I didn't!" I say
"I'd like to see some of my things go to good homes" she says
and really, I think she's worried about how much more
of the world they'll be able to see.
it all comes down to
rabbit paws
flipped over lucky strikes
horseshoes
brushed teeth
and green pens
odd numbers of roly-polies
face up pennies
wishbones
and tiger striped cats.
that's luck and anger for you.
manufactured, coincidental, whatever pleases the moment.
next time I'll bring down a cup of lady grey,
one for R and one for me.