viii. steve almond

dear steve almond,

you don't know me, but i saw you recently at a reading. the somerville writers' festival was held about a month ago, and you read quickly and then had to leave because your wife was about to go into labor. if i were her, i would be mad you agreed to read at the festival too. but that's not why i'm writing. i was moved by your letter excerpts*, as most were funny, others heartrendingly poignant, and all echoed something i might write myself, which i found most intriguing. so i went to the library, which you will be pleased to know has ALL of your books. and to think i'd never even heard of you. i selected "not that you asked," your book of personal essays, because that's what i like to write, and i hoped it might contain some of the letters you read. it didn't, but i was moved by your homage to vonnegut. i wonder if there's a writer who has had that amount of influence in my life: perhaps lisa carver, whom i have met, or cornel west and wendell berry, whom i have heard speak, or otherwise only the deceased--flannery o'connor, hannah arendt, peter kropotkin, thomas merton, salinger (who, alright, is not dead, but equally inaccessible). i made a zine once and used quotes from vonnegut, who was a fighter until the end. so, unlike you, i do not have grandparents who were communists, but i do come from good country people, and find that i am equally concerned with freedom and truth. so thanks for your words (your essay on the multiple deaths of josephine made me laugh out loud) and keep writing, and reading, and i hope you find another teaching post. you've got two babies to care for now.

sincerely,
ann crews melton

*for the inquisitive reader: steve almond resigned from boston college when they invited condoleezza rice to speak at commencement, after which he received hundreds of emails from right-wing nut jobs, to which he responded publicly at the reading. they included lots of references to his balls, and condi's balls, and hellfire, and expletives unfit to reproduce here.

vii. warmth

it begins as a searing point of light. as the coils tighten their tender fingers around the dark matter, i can no longer see. still, i sense the dark wings fluttering, carrying their echoes of anxiety, abandoned responsibility, thin air, and stunted growth. i cringe at the mournful chiming of the christmas bells. gifts, well-intended, lie leaden on my chest and strain my brittle fingers. the one i love lifts me from the gloom for but awhile, but then we argue, stutter and regret displaced cruel words.

it doesn't have to be like this. the cold does not comfort, the fireplace echoes emptily in the chill dark. the shadows of cattle and wildlife stare back from the night, their cold enormous eyes barely illuminated by the superficial exterior bulbs, lining roofs and warding off strangers. at this time, and always, it is only the familiar we hold dear.

and what of the light, that pinpoint gripping, searing, severing and stifling thoughts and stillborn kind words? the shards reach eyelids, cheekbone, neck, twisting in severity with the clanging of the bells. this pain is inherited. i carry it with the weight of our women, the coming heaviness and tears of childbirth, the pin pricks turned to burning prods that acknowledge no origin. they, as my body, have always been a part of me. i long for wholeness and reconciliation, not release. i can no more escape the pinpricks of light than i can cease to exist. the tendrils keep their grip firmly, unyielding. i try to breathe, eyes closed, seeing nothing, but feeling for the first time a gentle warmth near my hand. i hold hands with it and do not move, do not speak, as a single tear rolls toward my pillow.

vi. sidewalks

this morning i sloshed through the muddled streets of boston, where filth and oil and rainwater rolled down like an everflowing stream. my toes escaped unscathed, thanks to salt-ridden boots, and beneath my black umbrella i dodged the gazes of the curious and the disenfranchised. stepping precisely around cigarette butts, wayward candy wrappers and dunkin' donuts "happy holiddays" cups, i jetéd over the swirls of muck accumulating at each curb. my feet hurried forward without a clear path, touching no one.

i think of the trails i have traversed, from the path through the hedgerow that led to tesco's, me in vegan steel-toed boots with a backpack anticipating soy yogurt, dry pasta and a boldly labelled bottle marked "vodka." a lost wes anderson prop. we tromped together over the dying november grass, down a mile of sidewalk that passed the graffiti wrought by dave's eager hand. later the boots would carry me through the streets of newcastle and london, calling for bush and blair to consider the children who were not their own; who might in fact belong to no one.

there was no sidewalk in benares. the streets, full of cow manure, trampled marigolds and human excrement, quickly turned to dust from lack of rain. never barefoot, i envisioned wanton bacteria covertly invading my sandals. i could easily die here. at night, after sitar concerts or philosophy lectures, i left the meeting house to walk home, unwisely, alone, a tall pale ghost with a distinctly feminine shadow. there were no women in the preternaturally dark streets. beady eyes of street vendors hovered over flames, warming their pots of tea. as my sandals stumbled over the dusty path, i saw myself attacked, violated, robbed, or worse, fed into the ganges like men into the laughing jaws of kali. still, i prayed to her, mother of destruction and creation, dark wild goddess, protect me from my own ignorance.

v. godmother of punk

the pixies are the cause for some debate in empire records, if you remember, between ethan embry and that other guy. i first heard the pixies on a mix tape from C, my high school artist boyfriend. he collected songs that scared me--so intense in their professions of love and lust that i turned my cheek away from his eager lips. he backed off and made me a punk mix tape, which was mostly sonic youth and patti smith and other people i'd never heard of and did not appreciate until much later, when the tape played only squeaks and rumpled metallic rotations that soon ceased altogether. such is the ephemeral nature of high school love.

my sister married her high school boyfriend, after years of long distance car trips back and forth between texas colleges, passing miles and miles of pasture and outlet malls. now they own a house and two cars but no pets, other than the feral bunnies that leave spherical droppings in the yard. i expect i'll be an aunt soon, but i'm not sure i'm old enough to babysit helpless creatures that might, just a little bit, look like me.

speaking of getting older, i appreciate being born at the darkest time of the year. i am full of mystery, while the rest of creation is full of light. my horoscope says sagittarians should not to go to beijing or london as we would constantly feel watched, only i remember belfast as being much worse regarding surveillance and helicopters. sarah palin told alaskans to shoot wolves from helicopters, as if helicopters are readily available. maybe they are. i've never been to alaska but i'd love to go, back to the darkness from which i am born. there is a rilke poem about that, once written in chalk on my ceiling.