who are you,little i


Glitter is the panacea. It's the mall at Christmas time, but before thanksgiving, when the lights hang in smooth, ceiling bangles, and no one is hurried or rushed yet . . . Windows are frosted over in some lovely new gimmick and you haven't grown tired of ornaments.
Her name is Priyanka, and she grew up in India like I grew up in Africa, but she wears her home like a gorgeous sari draped beautifully, exotically, intangibly. We were shopping together, today. No one who is American can really pull off grace, I sometimes feel. She just narrowly escaped and is lovely and elegant and I love it and her. She is Hindu, and religion doesn't matter when I'm with her. It isn't that God doesn't matter, or spirituality, it's just that church service, hymns, and sacrament don't even exist. And I like it.

I wish I could sing, today. I wish I could make my voice spiral in that smooth, amber glaze that stills clock hands and passing strangers.

Life is too short not to travel, find jazz lounges, new friends, good poets. Life is too short to avoid puffed cheetos and scary movies. Life is to short not to sing in the shower and hold people without worrying about getting hurt.

And when I die I will still have the Maine sea breeze and the molten red thumbprint of sun on the back of my eyelids.