Re: You who started this all

[Excerpts of correspondence with a mentor/genius/kin]

Not to make this a chain letter about poets bursting into tears but I sat on the plane for Miami and opened this email up with so much chaos happening around me that the only appropriate reaction was to bury my head in my hands and sob.

Now I am composed in my hotel room, tucked in the sheets with an odd combination of lychee, vodka and unremarkable pasta in my belly. Thank you for seeing it, naming it and calling out to the work as it is. It is rare enough to have a worldview shared, and your care and seeing of the interiority is a kismet and kinship I thank goodness for.

Just on Monday I considered the new manuscript title STILL LIFE BANNO because I felt like a bird watcher as I returned to it.

Tomorrow I will finally submerge my body into an ocean, I have waited all year to do it. I will keep this treasured moment and synchronicity of bursting tears in my heart as I come up for air.