Anatomy of a Dress

You

Sometimes in our sleep we touch
The body of another woman
and we wake up
and we know the first nights
with summer visitors
in the three storied house of our childhood.
Whatever we remember,
the darkest hair being brushed
in front of the darkest mirror
in the darkest room.

Everybody Who Is Dead

When a man knows another man
is looking for him
He doesn’t hide.

He doesn’t wait
to spend another night
with his wife
or put his children to sleep.

He puts on a clean shirt and a dark suit
and goes to the barber shop
to let another man shave him.

He shuts his eyes
remembers himself as a boy
lying naked on a rock by the water.

Then he asks for the special lotion.
The old men line up by the chair
and the barber pours a little
in each of their hands.

Frank Stanford

That the words are simple and true is only half the battle. The train is leaving. The train is always leaving and you have not found your words.

Colson Whitehead

Spent the day with River: coffee on the couch, talking, walking around the neighborhood and talking, talking, sitting under the eaves on the back porch while it rained and sharing a joint in silence, remembering the peculiarities and joys of our friendship, laughing so hard tears rolled down our cheeks at the Food Whole meat counter, relating and reflecting, catching the fuck up, each of us talking until our voices cracked and then lapsing into blissful silence, rinsing lettuce, grilling hamburgers, mixing gin and tonics. Fireworks from the mountaintop: splashes of light plooshing over the city and the groan and rumble interminable seconds later: light’s limping sibling, sound, always trying to catch up.

All day went terribly quickly.

Yesterday, I passed over a bridge
and saw a boot underwater.
Such thoughts I had,
I cannot tell you.

Frank Stanford

Horribly grumpy after the cancellation of wimmy time due to inclement weather. Walked up to the Folk Art museum and spent the day looking at Indonesian puppets and huge arrangements of international bric-a-brac. So amazing on so many infinitely articulable levels. Sun drizzled a glow over my cheeks and nose and shoulders on the walk home. Spent the afternoon tooling around the apartment barely dressed, eating popsicles, writing and sending postcards, brushing Murray and mulling. This is the moment of stillness and quiet before my life becomes unrecognizable–big and gorgeous and new. Does it sound too fever pitched to say, the moment of silence before the birthcry? I am trying to figure out how to use it, and what for.

When dealing with Mystery,
it is best to keep a close
watch on the hand of reality.
Old myths can be reborn
without their heroes knowing it.

Jean Cocteau

Been a little tired and restless since I got here. A yearning and nostalgia I am trying to sit next to, respectfully.

Long walk with Julia this afternoon; short nighttime stroll with River this evening. And Now I’m stretched out on the couch, listening to the variations of wind filtering through the indifferent whir of the box fan. Nambe lake tomorrow: sharp red rock cliffs and freezing water, cheese and grapes and plastic flotation devices, naps and gigglefits. I should get to bed; it’s going to be a big day.

New Mexico already a whirlwind — Alexi Murdoch on the sunny windswept drive from the airport (SCAREPORT, I like to call it, because any trip up or down I25 is an exercise in possible self-annihilation), but not before a long winding stroll with Dana around Nob Hill after a Bacon/Lettuce/Fried Green Tomato sandwich at Slate Street. The sun evaporated the chill I caught in the Love Field terminal this morning. Now off to a barbeque at Colin’s house. Flip flops, black pearls, the world in a sunny, sleepy haze. I’m home. I’m happy, I’m home.

I often feel like giving up. I don’t know why I don’t except that I have family I love and students to whom I feel accountable. I have hope that, in the end, it will all make sense—the overabundance, the scarcity, the apparent meaninglessness, the incredible urge to harm, the terror of others. And the envy—worst of all the emotions, and most hidden. I often think I can’t take another day… I don’t know what else to say, except hang in there, we are all suffering, all of us, even though it might not seem so from the surface, even if from the surface it all looks easier in some other life—

Jorie Graham