Category: #Paradise

             Party Castle 12:05 am 2 July 79

                        Wrote D an angry farewell poem.

“HOW DID YOU MEET?”

You saw me naked

I saw you too close- up.

Between the green glimpses

You cut mountains down to size;

I’d no idea that one could take such charge of space.

You hovered, teaching –

Drinking vodka,

I drank wormwood –

Everything’s my fault. 

Now I’m a toad-dweller,  

Nostrils pierced by thorns 

Falling face-first through every hole;

You were the king the ghost pines saluted.

How you dove and danced!

Speeding through your love-drunk universe, you

Infected me with your own whiteness

Dizziness, till all my blood drained out.

You challenged God;

I was just the echo following after.

Yet here I am after all this time

And nothing promised remains of you.

Or, “Good luck with Sleeping Beauty’s castle!” That’s what he gets for messing with my heart. Can’t show anyone – most certainly not him – 

– and it isn’t really finished – and I don’t think it ever will be. But thank God for diaries. Diaries can be told anything.

                                     Reading Secrets in the Family – it is so superb

 I am going to buy copies for all my sisters. Looking forward to discussing it with Toss. I’m beginning to miss him now – he’s so deep and interesting to be around – so alive on many more levels than anyone else – challenging all my levels. Falling in love – happy, crazy.

             Thurs 11:05 – Plush Palace – 5 July 79

                                    Back at The Plush – it’s catch as catch can in my 

present situation. I am alienating managers left and right. But I am happy crazy and who cares?  

                                    Because on the third of July Toss asked me to 

marry him and I said yes!  Here’s how it happened. On Monday night we ate white clam linguini and Crenshaw melon while listening to Keith Jarrett’s Koln Concert  – then – came together in delicious, soul-freeing sex; two perfectly matched combatants recognizing each other not just from childhood and youth but school and dreams.  He was eager to learn how I could best be pleased – so I surrendered to the inevitable. Fireworks!

                                    He left me sleeping there in the AM – I heard thumping downstairs but I know he has roommates so didn’t think anything of it – 

– when he came back for lunch he discovered the door broken in and my purse missing. Keys, wallet, everything. I had to call into work – had to call a locksmith to give me keys to my car. 

                                    Toss doesn’t know what else they stole because he doesn’t know what else is supposed to be in this house – called his roommates. They came, police came. So we spent a day of intense babbling and the worst kinds of petty annoyances – but none of it mattered because he was there. In fact, I welcomed it; it was an extra opportunity to be together. 

                                    At one point I said, you know, you’re everything I’ve ever wanted in a man.  He said, if I believed that, I’d ask you to marry me. I said, if you did I’d say yes. 

                                     So he said, “Do you want to get married?” 

I said, “I think so,” and there it was!  He said I’m the only woman he has ever wanted to marry much less asked. We even chose the children’s names – there are going to be two of them – a boy and a girl of course; a combination of our old addresses! Had to call Aunt Frederica to give her the good news because 

she’s the one who had to give the hospital permission to stitch me up ten years ago after our first unfortunate night together!  (She was drunk of course. Both times) 

                                 Toss asked me to come back to Kentucky for his

last year of law school.  I “shouldn’t miss this part of his life.” Dogs too, natch – we are a package deal.  

                                    He has a house he’s rehabbing that has so many 

rooms it is known as the Hilton.  When I said I would come that was more important to him than our engagement even.  He says I can file for 

divorce in Kentucky’s understanding Commonwealth. He ordered a case of Moet Chandon, saying now we have to drive up the coast and

 tell everybody. I am a little scared to tell my parents – this suddenness might only seem another strike against me.  We told Avril and Maureen – they just stared – obviously thinking we both have lost our minds – it will take them awhile to believe in it.  I told Avril about Kentucky – 

she says she can handle the house; she can always rent out my 

room to a college student if she feels pinched. I want to leave some money with her – at least $1000 – had the brilliant idea to sell my car. 

Wouldn’t want to be impoverished in Kentucky and I don’t want to be on “retainer” from T.

                     Last night I read Toss The Duel and his eyes 

filled with tears!  He said the only flaw he sees in this arrangement is that one of us must surely predecease the other!  Could it really happen?  Could we grow old together? Could it be that I will never make love to another person?  Wrote a short note to Bruce, 

telling him I will definitely be needing a divorce, sooner, rather 

than later.  Now I am trying to write a letter to D; but honestly, 

what is there to say?   Summing up our relationship seems only

 to dismiss it.  He has already fallen far, far back into the past.  Toss is my future.

The Duel

Europe without you

Was a funeral feast.

I recall the procession of your letters

Far better than 

The stream of luckless suitors

Trying to distract me.

Virgins aren’t distractible.

Your seductive missives stalked me.

A fatal ploy was that nude photo

Adam lonely in his garden.

I came right home.

I well recall the ceremonies

Of that night!

Your shyness

My perfume

Our ignorance

Wild and hard 

A riderless horse.

I did cry out as the candles burned.

I swear there were some moments when

We actually saw each other.

But if this magic sword cuts both ways

Why was I the only bleeder?

They peeled me off

And dropped me down a mile

Of antiseptic hallway –

A princess in a bucket.

It could have ended there

But at your school I haunted you

A chilly-breasted demon.

My daytime incarnation seemed mature:

I fooled everyone;

We chatted as you prepared the skin.

I bit down hard and 

Tasted  only

Suture wire.

You wrote and broke off 

Our association.

Years groaned by

Like convicts chained

We served our terms with no time off

For bad behavior.

Lust had luster,

Excrement was ecstasy.

The castaways the whirlwind 

Flung upon the sand

Were calm, polite

We knew our way around. But

That look you gave me!

Our unborn children shivered

In their sausage skins 

Fully aware

Their time had come.

The tale was done

The frog-mask

Shivered off

We saw:

The you of you

The me of me –

Masks 

Unmirrored

Scars 

Unscored

Virgins not but

Innocents Restored.