it.
Cassie
Actually, I have seen better pictures of Kathleen. However, she is such an annoying pain in the ass, I rather liked the idea of puffy pictures.
Of course, I had an e-mail from Michael. I stood and walked around my room, delaying the agony of opening it. I wasn’t sure where he and I were headed. I felt my heart skip a beat for a fraction of a second every time I had mail from him. But if my first marriage didn’t teach me anything about how absolutely horrible I am in a relationship, then I deserved to be stabbed with safety scissors. I ate two Tums and then opened the e-mail.
Cassie:
No silliness. No drowning in my cups today. I am just, quite simply, thinking of you. I have this picture of you from a magazine. Lou tells me it’s a terrible picture. You’re not even facing the camera. But you are laughing with Lou and two authors, and I am filled with both desire and envy. I should be making you laugh. I should be making you cry. I should be making you feel the rhythms and cadences of this dance of life.
I am not sure how this all got so serious, Cassie. But we’ve talked more than I have ever talked to any woman. All our late nights and dawns and discussions, and e-mails. I’ve said so much to you, but not the important things. I’ve avoided telling you about my secrets until now they threaten to get in the way. I am muddling along, trying to decide if being honest is worth risking all the lightness we have and all our talk of your perfect breasts and my 14-inch cock and all our racy late-night musings. Will I throw it all away if the secrets spill out and you won’t have me? Because when I see you laughing in the magazine, Cassie, I know I don’t have you now anyway. I am willing, I think, to chance it. Let me make you laugh and cry. I promise I will doboth. I guarantee it. I’m a stupid ass really, sometimes. I do make women cry. And yet I have even been learning how to make coffee. I bought this silly machine at a Starbucks—they’ve arrived in London as part of their plan for global domination, you know. And I don’t even know if what I have made in this new pot is rot because I don’t drink it. It seems to have the consistency and color of black oil or mud. But I am trying.
Should go…it’s late and my editor is going to have my bottom if I don’t finish this next chapter. She’s a real slave driver. But she’s brilliant. And I adore her,
Michael
In the quiet of my room, with the scent of jasmine floating up from the garden, mixing with the salt air and fire and sauce of Maria’s kitchen, I felt tears—foreign and unwelcome—forming. I couldn’t write back. Not yet. Donald Seale, a bad epic poem, Lou O’Connor’s financial troubles, my mother’s death watch…this ulcer I was developing…and a brilliant man in London were all conspiring to drive me stark raving mad.
13
I confess to you in a velvet box
hushed
fallen
claim my host
tongue pressed forward
claiming you
for me
for all eternity.
Last rites now
anguish
oiled crosses
speaking death
whispering velvet
useless crosses
unfulfilled promises
on the wall.
After death it is
tomatoes, I recall
your own Gethsemane
a garden for us
an Eden now
a wasteland
bloodstained soil
caked in death
ashes to your
ashes
dust to your
dust.
A child now
dancing in my kitchen
amidst potato bonsai
can I learn to
eat vine ripe tomatoes
grow greens
again?
Teach me, Mother Confessor
Teach me, hear me
touch me
let me
go
out of Eden
hell
fallen angel
rage and hate
intermingled with
nothingness
not love
just
life.
I sat reading Roland’s poem. No. Lou and I would most definitely not be retiring on its sales. There was a point when, at disastrous moments like this one, I would have visited my father. We shared a passion for writers and books. From the time I was a little girl, I remember books filling every nook of our immense apartment. Galleys spilled off his worn
Cassie
Actually, I have seen better pictures of Kathleen. However, she is such an annoying pain in the ass, I rather liked the idea of puffy pictures.
Of course, I had an e-mail from Michael. I stood and walked around my room, delaying the agony of opening it. I wasn’t sure where he and I were headed. I felt my heart skip a beat for a fraction of a second every time I had mail from him. But if my first marriage didn’t teach me anything about how absolutely horrible I am in a relationship, then I deserved to be stabbed with safety scissors. I ate two Tums and then opened the e-mail.
Cassie:
No silliness. No drowning in my cups today. I am just, quite simply, thinking of you. I have this picture of you from a magazine. Lou tells me it’s a terrible picture. You’re not even facing the camera. But you are laughing with Lou and two authors, and I am filled with both desire and envy. I should be making you laugh. I should be making you cry. I should be making you feel the rhythms and cadences of this dance of life.
I am not sure how this all got so serious, Cassie. But we’ve talked more than I have ever talked to any woman. All our late nights and dawns and discussions, and e-mails. I’ve said so much to you, but not the important things. I’ve avoided telling you about my secrets until now they threaten to get in the way. I am muddling along, trying to decide if being honest is worth risking all the lightness we have and all our talk of your perfect breasts and my 14-inch cock and all our racy late-night musings. Will I throw it all away if the secrets spill out and you won’t have me? Because when I see you laughing in the magazine, Cassie, I know I don’t have you now anyway. I am willing, I think, to chance it. Let me make you laugh and cry. I promise I will doboth. I guarantee it. I’m a stupid ass really, sometimes. I do make women cry. And yet I have even been learning how to make coffee. I bought this silly machine at a Starbucks—they’ve arrived in London as part of their plan for global domination, you know. And I don’t even know if what I have made in this new pot is rot because I don’t drink it. It seems to have the consistency and color of black oil or mud. But I am trying.
Should go…it’s late and my editor is going to have my bottom if I don’t finish this next chapter. She’s a real slave driver. But she’s brilliant. And I adore her,
Michael
In the quiet of my room, with the scent of jasmine floating up from the garden, mixing with the salt air and fire and sauce of Maria’s kitchen, I felt tears—foreign and unwelcome—forming. I couldn’t write back. Not yet. Donald Seale, a bad epic poem, Lou O’Connor’s financial troubles, my mother’s death watch…this ulcer I was developing…and a brilliant man in London were all conspiring to drive me stark raving mad.
13
I confess to you in a velvet box
hushed
fallen
claim my host
tongue pressed forward
claiming you
for me
for all eternity.
Last rites now
anguish
oiled crosses
speaking death
whispering velvet
useless crosses
unfulfilled promises
on the wall.
After death it is
tomatoes, I recall
your own Gethsemane
a garden for us
an Eden now
a wasteland
bloodstained soil
caked in death
ashes to your
ashes
dust to your
dust.
A child now
dancing in my kitchen
amidst potato bonsai
can I learn to
eat vine ripe tomatoes
grow greens
again?
Teach me, Mother Confessor
Teach me, hear me
touch me
let me
go
out of Eden
hell
fallen angel
rage and hate
intermingled with
nothingness
not love
just
life.
I sat reading Roland’s poem. No. Lou and I would most definitely not be retiring on its sales. There was a point when, at disastrous moments like this one, I would have visited my father. We shared a passion for writers and books. From the time I was a little girl, I remember books filling every nook of our immense apartment. Galleys spilled off his worn
Similar Books
