And Her Soul Out Of Nothing

I’m Only Now Beginning To Answer Your Letter

I'm Only Now Beginning To Answer Your Letter Remind me of your affliction. 1'd like a chronological exhibit of the disorders leading up to our conversation, like your old driver's licenses arranged in that one thin pocket of leather, the phases ofyour hair, the splay of your youth. Your current eyes distorted by lenses, you're speaking clearly, louder than the drugs prescribed. What I want to know about is the frenzy. Sure, I can picture you on Christmas Eve needing Mass to last as long as a bottle of wine, but I don't get the religion. Explain Jesus. Talking with you was like opening an empty drawer. Talking with you was like emptying an open drawer. My hands overflowing with garments out-dated, or never worn. What do you call that thing a priest wears around his neck? The scarf of a priest ... Explain how we're so immediately alive. And how far can I carry the thought of you when already the snow won't hold me. Even rosaries get tired. And you're not thinking me, you're just imagining my dead sisters. 7 You say you want to feel the words. You just want to live in Boston with the painter Martha McCollough. Sure, I can imagine the thought of an easel, the idea of thick paint. But I want you to explain it simply, clinically. Because now that I've thought about it, what doesn't begin with love and death and end in loneliness? I'm only now beginning to answer your letter: Remind me of your affliction. 8 ...