News From America

Sometimes my friend goes to Molyvos on the Island of Lesbos in Greece. It is paradise, according to him. He should know, since he's a poet. A paid poet named Gary.

Gary writes me e-mails from Lesbos, usually from a cyber-cafe in view of the Agean Sea, under the shadow of a mountain, surrounded by goats, creaky old men in black suits, rattletrap motorbikes buzzing past. The sea is emerald, the sky is deep blue, and the colorful fishing boats bob on cute little waves. It could make a person sick.

Gary asks, "How are things back home?" I send him the News From America:

................................
Gary;

I dropped a car off at Buddy's this morning and began the walk home. Buddy needs to fix that rattling strut.

Just ahead a woman named Berdina was walking home, too. It was about 8:30 a.m. and sunny, dry, breezy. Berdina (whom I had never met) waited for me to catch up. How far? I say a mile. She says not so far for her.

I found a black feather, and Berdina remembers stories of the old one-room school hustle-bustle with black children. The school is falling down. Berdina wears a bright yellow slouch hat and stretch pants.

She touched me lightly on the arm and said color doesn't matter, we're all the same. I told her about Mexicans and little shacks.

At a crossroads she disappeared into a white cinderblock house with a pile of cut up hardwood pallets in the yard beside an orange chain saw. I wound my way through a field of new green corn, waist high.

Your Friend,
M. ______
...................................
Gary;

How you ever came to call and claim the life of that dog, I'll never be sure. You see, I tried sending you a fax at a number that should have been zero and yet I was sure was four. Some mechanical bitch answered in Spanish beeping, "Quattro, quattro, quattro!"

Then I called your colleague at the mattress store who said (breathily) no it was zero and you're on the road somewhere anyway tending to the death of a family member. His sincerity smelled of 3M PostIt notes as I thought, "Father? Mother? One-legged cousin who got shot by the Viet Cong?"

Where is my father?

You are supposed to be there to receive this dog after I have his balls cut off in the name of Great God humanity. That'll make him get fat for sure. Why chase the Senoritas when the little man's been shot by subversives? I have all these questions and you're not there to answer them.

I got a letter at the Post Office from the Association and they didn't fold it at all but paid extra postage to send flat sheets re: a meeting I attended and they care as I care about certain outcomes, sincerely, the Association. It's all very clear. Thick white clouds mounted in the Northeast in contrast to a shocking blue, and it's pretty cold for May.

I didn't get too far on the way home from the Post Office when I saw a fluffy white dog at the end of a dark stripe leading from the right lane of Route 360 to the gravel. Why don't these people ever stop? A comical red plastic bone-shaped tag identified the deceased as Tuesday. It's Monday, you bastards. Lynyrd Skynyrd sang, "Tuesday's Gone with the Wind."

The gaze fixed dead fish attention on the cloud banks and hinted of anger, resignation. Tufts of white fur caught the breeze. Tuesday's bright pink small intestine was coiled neatly between her paws. I'd call the name on the tag -- Henrietta? -- but pictured a lonesome old woman calling, "Tuesdaa-ay!" How could I tell her that Tuesday was gone without thinking of that stupid old song, without offering to go with her to pick the dog up to save her from the sight of that hideous intestine? It's too much for me and it'll be way too much for her.

I remember climbing a mountain at one in the morning with my brother. We had one flashlight, a case of beer, two sleeping bags and were to camp somewhere beyond a rock face. It was cold. A white cat was caught on the rocks in a creek, her leatherette collar soaked, her bell silent, her white hair tracing eddies and currents in the water.

A deer came to our camp and our tiny fire, then backed away, all fits and starts. The town twinkled. We had coffee in the morning fixed on a tiny stove and never thought about the cat again.

Now this dog is waiting to have his balls cut off and I'm home with the mail. And I'm waiting for you to call.

Sincerely,
M. ___________
.................................
Gary;

The gargoyles greeted my morning walk glaring, crouching concrete distracting glances from a security camera and a golf cart peeps from behind trees dripping with last night's rain.

A mockingbird hopped to a mailbox, showed me his white blazes and dapper gray while wood thrushes sang their hollow chant.

A new vinyl fence kept a buzzing above-ground swim pool from escaping to the flattened frogs on Route 600.

The burned parsonage is now repainted and awaits a parson. A van from the city is in its yard, and fresh paint signs flip on twine.

A man with a dangling plastic bag walks the other way the shape of his morning bottle pressing white away from his knuckles.

Kisses,
M. ________