Dear Fernando,
Already, on Tuesday, it has been a long week.
Saturday night was a flight of magnificent juvenile passion
speakers making bones vibrate on a patio in Williamsburg at two in the morning
surrounded by a generation I must embrace but cannot understand
Sunday, eating cashew cream cheese while being
eaten by mosquitoes, and that night
an underwhelming performance by Aretha Franklin.
I shielded the other patrons from the glow of my phone
as I repeatedly checked the score for
the final game between the Spurs and the Heat
Monday, I arrived at work to discover that our office manager had quit.
She was an inspiration; certainly, she was mine
in coming to work here in the first place
Most people are angry, the way that
people get when they are confronted suddenly by change
but I am happy for her
because I know what it is to do what one must, with grace,
to improve the quality of one’s life
Today, again, more fear and anger and the incessant
yammering of an incensed hoard
I try to ignore the racket of tongues
the endless disapproving cluck of the coop
but even I, on occassion, must step outside
into the embrace of screaming children and car horns
in search of peace
Times like this, as silly as it may sound
I wish you and I
and your friends and mine
could all escape to the beach
that you and I could listen to Bossa Nova
drink from the bottle
and smile like the waves
as we lay in silence on the beach
Siempre,
Irene
Letters and Other Lovers 