I’m reading The Letters of James Schuyler to Frank O’Hara
– and just came across this, probably the best opening of a letter I’ve ever read.
Dear Frank,
I never like to write letters after 6 in the evening (it’s just 6)—I’m so afraid I may
describe the sunset, or mention my aspirations-
This piece is loosely inspired by that book and James’s letters to Frank.
—————————-
when you are not present i am
not human and welts form in the shape of
small animals at the first sign of cold
and the second to last paragraph of the
very last letter i wrote to you was:
dogs wear clothes now.
shoes even!
because, why not! and the
ghosts of Jack Russell’s past understand
their loss and seem to be all right with it
and the last paragraph of the same letter:
christ, darlin’ two lifetimes of living insists
there is nothing i can do, except open a
bottle of wine, and watch some lousy TV until the night breathes damp and heavy along the worn arc of my back, and i have drank the very last drop of the burning bottle
and i am not as cold as you, sleeping in the dirt, way up in the Hollywood Hills.