(i mistake the sounds coming from the auto-body shop two doors down for the sounds of maybe knocks at my back-deck door.)
two winters ago � & this is the why of the name � i had these very gorgeous tableaux-vivants kind of hanging-in-the-air-before-me visions of myself as a tarot or loter�a card, almost like images of christ with the Sacred Heart, except with one hand holding open the gape in my chest, & with the other holding out to you � to the other � an orange. which had been ripped out.
now i have been wondering what it is i am holding in my hand. i think i am holding my orange-heart. i told mischka i am holding my job. sometimes in incongruous ways i feel i am holding out my skin (st bartholomew?).
let me offer up myself & my silly words that spill out fast & maniac. he is the one to point out how my voice sounds, & he has never heard my voice.
i can feel something whirring in my chest. vespertine is holding me together. do i owe you a letter? if so i bet i have started it in the past couple of days, in red ink, & i bet that i have let it go, that i have torn it out & torn it up, & thrown it into the recycling bag that murmur likes to climb into, because it is paper & full of bits of paper.
oh, today i sat on the bus across the aisle from a man who was eating peanuts out of his pocket: crack the peanut open in his pocket, then withdraw what was edible to put in his mouth. during the ride his pants & his shirt & the seat next to him & the floor became littered with bits of shell & bits of papery skin. passengers' eyes rolled. he looked up & met my gaze & was competely not self-conscious of the mess he was making, of how hard it would be to get all that papery skin out of the cloth of the seat.
