COLLATERAL

Ex-boyfriends and relatives have risen to the rooftop and won’t let go. Emily tries to calm them with grace and simplicity. To go anywhere. This morning the ocean disappeared. People got hurt getting their taste. And all the rest you mumble moonlight. The shades of quietude

You are the least fascinating version of yourself.

Was I going for a walk alone? Don’t take your pulse seriously. There is the name and the thing, cut out. We arrived in shreds. I’d like to be able to speak exhaustively, but I got feelings without names, displaced. My experiment on breathing will take its toll on your generation. I know the difference between seeing and memory, lost and found. Now Emily’s gone and I wish I lived a more judicious existence, like larvae. She didn’t wish to live at all. Too much thinking or not enough? Messiness. After a conversation with my mother on dissemination, I gave up tennis. Thunder on the mountain but the clouds give no rain to our hemisphere. Mom said people are divided into dark and light. Dad says become anything but a secretary. My sister and I will run away and blame them for everything—dropping off and bursting open.

Some Rumors About People You Used to Know

1.    JoAnn married a man who worships women.  He comes from a country – don’t remember which one – where there’s a cult, where people bow to the female body, pray to its mystery, to its eggs and birth.  He makes eggs with every meal, as part of his belief system.  It works out perfectly for her – don’t you remember from those cafeteria days?  JoAnn always loved scrambled eggs with cheese.


2.     Leonard walks with a cane, though he’s just got a tiny limp.  Barely noticeable.  But wasn’t he always melodramatic, always a song and dance man?


3.    These days, Peter wears an eye patch.  He won’t tell the story unless you pour beer down his throat, so he’s always getting free drinks.  But if you see him, you won’t have to buy a thing, because you’re getting the story right now.  He got caught in a convenience store robbery while trying to buy a banana and some Camel Filters.  The robber said, “You like looking that much?  You like looking at me so much?” Peter, all shocked and in a trance, said that he did, yes he did, very much, sir.


4.    Sandy owns a castle somewhere in Scandinavia.  A rich Danish couple with a barrelful of them swapped it for surrogate motherhood.


5.    Joel got facial reconstructive surgery.  He was tired of being so pretty.  This world had objectified him for far too long, he said.  Now, his face is like a better-looking Ringo Starr.  People follow him for autographs.


6.    Arthur owns the best wig shop in Nashville.


7.    Charlie bought a big, cheap plot of land in Minnesota and built a house with his own two hands.  His fifteen-year-old son helped, but I guess you could say those are his hands, too – Charlie took part in making them, didn’t he?  While he and his wife were out walking the dog, the house collapsed.  It was such a simple house, his son was easy to find in the rubble.


8.    Lisa – your first love, wasn’t she? – has three kids.  Three.  She named all of them after her three older brothers.  Even the daughter.  Now, she’s got a little girl named Benjamin.  A beautiful girl, cute as a slice of cake, named Benjamin.  Is that a hell sentence, or what?

9.    Will opened a chain of gas stations.  I tell you, he’s so stuffed with money, he sneezes gold coins.  You know what he does with all that cash?  Art collecting.  He collects sculptures and photos and paintings and tapestries, you name it, all showing women in moments of ecstasy.  Toes curled, heads back, mouths open, that sort of thing.  The sculptures are his favorites.  They say he’s got four rooms with just sculptures. 


10.    You?  You’ve been away too long.  They say you’ve got all the good stories, but none of them are true.