(ping)
hello
universal reader
I think I will construct you
in specifics. You are 27,
live in the Midwest, you
have a cat and a goldfish
and a boyfriend who gives you flowers.
You take one cream and two sugars.
You have a keychain with palm trees on it
from your last vacation to Florida.
(hello.)
Or, wait, maybe you're male.
In which case you have a Ford Taurus,
like to swim, shop at Trader Joe's,
and you've rented Waiting to Exhale
three times, because it makes you cry.
(hello.)
Oh. You're 15, you wear black
and you're reading this because
you think you might see in me an end
to adolescence, the places you might get
when you get out of your damn high school
where everyone is mean and the teachers
don't give a shit. You read Anne Sexton
and smoke other people's cigarettes.
(hello.)
I consider you all a fiction;
I write for the readers in my head,
the voices to whom I owe truth--
and to you, who I do not know,
who look over my fence and blink
at this startling tangle, this
glimpse of a half-silvered mirror
hanging in the woods.
But you are a convincing fiction.
I think I might believe in you.
Sirs, I am afraid you have the advantage of me.
I could curtsey and scrape but the truth is
that I am sending these words out in little leaf boats,
watching them bob and spin merrily downstream.
I wave goodbye to them.
I wonder if they ever reach the sea.
you, universal readers,
who catch my little boats
with the words written on the sides,
I admire you. Those messages
you send in bottles are lovely.
Thank you.
If you ever make it this far upstream,
I have both cream and sugar.
(hello.)
—3/7/00