November 29th, 2014

Dear Chris:
  
I miss you dear, I'd like to say. Though it's been six months, thoughts of you are here to stay. My words turn to putty and I wish to form them like clay because there's so much to you I wish to convey. I've been traveling and unraveling the belt loops of life, and striding through gliding on ice skates from strife. I don't know if still I can sing the same tune. Our dreams from the Bay have been vexing me; perplexing me since June. The ring you gave me has my fingers swollen like my head, just like a balloon! And I don't know if it makes me sullen to confess when you asked for my hand, even hypothetically, I was to be your wife complete with white dress. Somewhere along the line that dream has changed. Though I feel that this letter was written selfishly. I really must say.. All I know is that I miss you Chris, I have missed you since May.

-Adeline

December 1st, 2014

Adeline:
   
I was wanton and flagrant when your letter was received. I was bounding and bursting; hardly contained in my seat. Your familiar fragrance beseeching my heart's conceit, and in your confidence said that you're missing me. Until the usual silence declares again it's already half past three. Time to wash away delusions that are causing my hope to reek.
Still..

Certainly there will be another chance to hear from you next week.

I am here and it is the day after.
I lift a pile of unread mail off of a chair and open the blinds,
And watch the sun boil the dust in the air. I set and I take it in.

The room smells of old corsets and perfumed talcum powder.
An antique Lady Schick Consolette hair dryer
Hides partly obscured under the heavy frame of the carved mahogany bed
Along with stacks of magazines and catalogs and…………
God knows what else lurks there.

And I realize that I am the only one now lurking,
Looking into a room that had been forbidden to me
The soul domain of the lady of the house.

But she in not here to make things tidy for this impromptu visit.
She would be so shamed by my eyes taking this all in,
Her secrets, her pills, her special candies, her oils, her perfumes -
All of the alchemical accruements of femininity in jars and tiny boxes.

And the symbols of her wizardry, her diamond encrusted Eastern Star ring,
Pendants, broaches, earrings, necklaces, bobbles, bracelets, clasps, loose pearls-
From a strand I broke long ago during happier days.

The sun dust boils from this cauldron now,
This stuffy, over stuffed chamber of perfume and chocolate,
Of daybeds and special treatments, laxatives, gels, powered and pills.
I dream…..a can of gas and a match would be a fitting end

And then I see it on the dresser, an old photo of a family, a pretend family
And a face is cut out of it, his face…….and so I feel, for a moment
Her pain and see the world has she may have seen it. So be it.  It is done.

Light shines off the lines of old paint brush strokes on smudged oil paint,
Vintage bubbles, worn from countless fingers, notebooks, pencils,
the accruements of learning, teaching, and thinking.
I can imagine the hands that painted these surfaces,
These old desks, missing drawers, staggered six feet from each other,
Social distanced under the gaze of outdated television screens,
Confined within these walls, peeling paint, under stained ceiling tiles.
Those hands were tired, they held the brush with a practiced hand that wasn't dried out from hand sanitizer,
They spilt paint on the floor, left stains, let paint run down the sides of the desks -
Those trails still stay in certain light, they gleam from the shadows,
Not visible to the Zoom attendants.