I keep wanting to write this, not what I am supposed to be writing, not my novel, or my poems. I keep wanting to tell this story, to write another letter.
One of my best friends called, from the city. She was running, she is always running to something or other, in this case, on her way to console a friend. She is always out of breath on her messages. She is brave, takes the train. She knows I am busy, working, teaching.
There must be a lot of things running through you, she said.
What a great way to say this. What are they, these running things? Thoughts. Words. Ideas. Hunger. All ribbons pulled through me to the end.
I left the world of my novel Sunday, and now it’s hard to go back, dive down. Black moss on the stones, bare feet nearly touching.
I dreamt I was made to play the piano on a sinking raft. In my dream, it was the best I ever played, even as the craft splintered, and the sea crept over the legs, salting the strings, dulling the hammers, and I couldn’t hear chords. I was pulled up by the tide, but I tried not to be, kicking my long skirts, weighting my hands on the white keys, willing them to hold me, take me down with them. I am afraid to touch the bottom of lakes, which is why I seek out deep water, stay in it. Comfort is a not ending, an endlessness, an ever. It’s getting really dark there, at the bottom of the well, and I look outside the window where I sit, high in a high building, the red brick, the fingered trees, cotton snow, and it’s here.
