He said to me,
"She's half the poet you are."
All 5 foot eight of me.
She met me pregnant,
she met me all full, possible.
She liked me better pregnant,
later with children my distractions,
her distraction. She sent me letters
full of Russian soul, good will, poetry, guts, life,
affection, admiration, American wry,
American literati's verve, her travels,
her mother's death.
(I wore a loose, lime green shirt,
a long strand of lime coloured, polished seeds,
black and white, home-made, checked leggings,
white sand shoes. Why do I recall such detail?
I recall her small hands
and her Brooklyn laugh,
increate, loud, full,
like I like.)
I write to her
late September 2001,
not to her address in Manhattan
but to her publisher to find her
once mail is sane.
I wonder if she will get my card.
I wonder if she will write.
I wonder if she will write poems
about September eleventh;
would critics judge her talent
for digestive living?
Would they remember her according to size?
I will remember the grace with which the planes
turned and dissolved. My reason
crushed, slain, by distancing, reflexive critique.
My empty heart with her. Plausible. Dumb.