I Thought You Were Drawing a Heartbeat

August 29 2008.

Last night, I found a letter I wrote to you, unsent and dated Friday the 13th, June 2008. In it, I talked about smooth, vanillabean icecream, how I used to be a girlscout who churned it from scratch in old coffeecans. I said I was sitting in the park, said I wished I could weave tapestries, so I could weave one for you, and put our stories in it. I said I found a girl called Sadie, who wears orange and red, and I thought I might be able to love her. But that was months later.

Robert Kelly told me a story: “Years ago, when I was living in Los Angeles, the local grocery store had a sale- lemons for a penny each. I bought a hundred.” I can’t explain my yearning here, how I want so badly and impossibly to own this story, to remember wearing those golden bangles that day at the grocery store, how they reflected off the smooth metal of the cart, filled to the top, tremendously so, with knobbled lemons. Or two carts? It is too much for my heart that I might have needed two carts. In the same way, I can’t explain how, at my kitchen job two summers ago, I broke open a freshly heated hotdog bun, and found myself crying as I held it, soft and warm, in my hands.

Anna asked me today what I thought of all those people sitting, holding string. The Polish boy with open eyes and glassy hair taught me to tie knots. His hands were quick and quiet. She wanted to talk about sunsets and killing each other for diamonds, I said, this meltdown is on overload.
I told Liza I loved her, and she said, “Lamp? What?”