This is dedicated to two women whom make certain I don’t go without food or coffee. Guy also contributes to my financial affairs, although this is not about him.

Love Letter Written with a Wishful Penny Attached

I borrow letters from the alphabet at no cost to anyone. The letters never run out but occasionally get lost in the paper clips and rubber bands, the empty ice trays or rolls of toilet paper. How do I curve where we are headed without falling into the abyss of tired “Gs.”

This is about love. “Js” jump at the chance to be involved. I can handle one jack rabbit jumping over the name John; a dear John this is not. I’m trying to say this is about love. About love being so much more than a penny. Although, pennies can decorate an evening on a porch of a restaurant known for its linguini and musicians tucked in corners of the building, on low, serenading everyone.

I have little to offer others than letters and toothy grins. It’s a stretch for me to get this on paper because there is so much I want to give. I usually trust that most written words find their niche; they roll over on a line and butt up into a sentence. Sometimes an exclamation settles it, but usually it’s a period. Love is not lost with a dash. A dash simply means something else is a attached, maybe the geranium I spotted sitting in the window of Pete’s Pizzeria.

It feels like I am moving further away from you while enlisting all these words to form paragraphs. It was not my intention to write paragraphs. I was going to turn all this into a poem. My printer has plenty of ink. My type is showing off; it’s more useful to me than a magenta crayon. Crayons have to be sharpened and, well, magenta is too bright for me right now. I’m thinking more gray. Did I mention the band serenading the patrons?

How many letters ago was that? “A few,” you say, and aren’t I glad you finally showed up. I do know you were there all along like one does a dog leaving a muddy trail across concrete.

I am reminded of a poetry class I once attended. I would write long stretches of words and turn these stretches into the professor. At long last, the professor said “Kristina, I have yet to see a single poem from you!” So I wrote a poem, a very bad poem that contained poison ivy and love gone wrong.

My love for you is raw and bridled, reflected in the flank of a horse. It’s not sexual. There is no kiss that follows hello and walks away with a promise. We are not attached by anything greater than an intimate friendship; intimate because we show up to dinner vulnerable, willing to share anything that belongs to us, lingering just below the edge of consciousness.

I’m winding down like a girl who does “around the world” with her yo-yo, her yo-yo landing safely in her palm.