Rivendell
Letter to Luke from Buttonwillow
Cathy ColmanRight now as I'm writing to you I smell a smell like gardenias and ajax and the inside of a limo after sex. No, I am not bleeding though you probably think I am because as the day grows old there's a gash in every hour and when you smell blood it's usually someone else's. But don't mind me or the naked brocade of my skin which has been known to be radioactive, also known to smell like a courtesan's flowers and a clean kitchen,--you know, that place where you should talk to yourself more, find the current that runs under the day, all the leaves shaking with involuntary light or pain that floats among the trees and around the house that wants to be loved like a body.
I look at you over and over, when I can see you, your small dentyne-colored nipples as you ask me to just bite them, because we keep doing this tango with the scenery even when it's not so lush, even with the water on full blast and I don't want to understand everything, or see my own face drenched in longing. Even though it's been four years since the fire and no one's any older. That's what tragedy does to you, a leap forward into a priestly chaos which is how you are supposed to remake yourself, like right now as I'm writing to you I'm waiting for you and not waiting for you and dust erupts from the sun and rains down, covering us and our disappearing
woe. I'd call it possession but it happens on any quiet street. I'd call it extra-terrestrial singing but then they'd say I'm crazy but I'm not crazy because just yesterday you asked "When you don't love me any more, will you suck my dick?" and I laughed because what you meant was, then no one will get hurt and this is American life, I thought, this is the moment we live for, even in the non- island kitchen, where you pressed against me on the drainboard without scotch or any aperitifs, just quicksilver that circled us like chains.
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