Message in a Bottle
J--
I am lost--it is desert, desert everywhere like a great grey glass, and I cannot fall through this one, cannot use it as a door to something more beautiful, cannot use it to get back to you. I can only fall and fall and beat my poor, bloodied hands against the corrosive sand. The sky is slate and the earth is lead and I cannot see you anywhere, anywhere. My hair is falling out like long, looose sheaves, like grain going under a scythe. And my secret: a lizard crept up to me three and a half nights ago--she bit my pretty finger off. The tea-finger, the one that curved so nicely when I drank from your marzipan cups, oh so long ago, so long I cannot imagine that there was such a place where you and I nestled against each other and I felt the thrill of your scales on my skin. There is now only the awful wind and the blood, and the drunken behavior of the sand and sky, which conspire to destroy me. I am old, I am old, and no little cake can help it, no cordial can mend my torn dress, can remove the taste of wine and your salted lips from my mouth. I am lost, lost, lost in the dark and abandoned to a vengeful air. --A
