As the year. Vivian wants to hear
From you, to know how you're doing.
But before I go on, before you
Take off, I need to set straight
A few things I can't let you go without.
Indicative is the mood we tend to speak in.
Frank was already dead when Bella shot him.
And "Bobby McGee" came out after Janis died.
When you told Carmen that I like
Cream in my coffee, you were wrong.
I like it black. I don't like sugar, either.
You were right, though, about Carl.
He can't paint, and he can't talk,
But he can listen, and he listens to music.
My mother died in August. Dad read
#640 at the funeral, took up piano.
He's learning to write letters, you know.
So. Ivan and Alicia want you to know
They divorced in November. I should
Have called, you may already know by now,
But I haven't been home much.
I've taken to hiking in the woods.
When the sky is clear, and the moon is out --
Behold a theater of trees!
You must know the yellow birch,
How its ruddy skin curls with age.
You would want to peel the bark back
And plane the rings in leaves, like pages.
I would hear them round each other round
About the night. Ah! There's my cue --
You'll know how then, love, before I go,
Your Eliot's line is Shakespeare's.