My friend’s friends are far away.
Her cats still live on pages of pet catalogues
written for those who read with no letters.
I remember being seven years old and knowing it
through pain I felt in my knees whenever buses
were driving by, splashing street-water into
always
empty
basins
taking those
betterthanus
to work
their afternoon shift
It was easy to be a Communist when I was 7.
Everybody else was Communist too,
although the many were older than I.

Tanya’s in New York,
writes short postcards
and always does
XXOO
mails naked bodies
B&W
stamps different colors
her eyes sometimes hidden behind the commas
acting
as if
nothing
really
happened.

Dolly is in New York too, coupled in her “ethnic neighborhood”.
A Milagro Beanfield Beauty.
Her born-again toe erected and in a peculiar angle,
ashamed of old gods and angry with
baby angels.

James bakes brownies in Amsterdam &
changed his name into She-Whose-Morning-Dew-Says-Fuck off-And-Flush-After-You-Leave-To-Hug-A-Parkbench-On-The-Way-Away-From-Here-Freakin’-Jesus.

George is a pirate.
His Gin Tonic opens doors then closes them then opens again then kills.
He hides Boston inside the pillowcase.
He collects cats’ hair and tears he cries
only when she comes to crash.

I am here.
With this pen in my hand
and I am her friend when
everyone
else
is
asleep
or
crossing telephone lines
diagonally
like a promise.

She buys a shrink, who cuts her hair next to the Fresh Choice,
a place where one can eat all you can eat but only salad.
She sits at the shrink’s trying to learn how to talk to herself outside of her
while looking at the chair beside herself
side to side with the shrink
where she sits
talking to her in a soft voice of an offered hand.

Hi, she says – Hi, says the chair, I live in your head.
Like pride. Like fear.
Like love, food, lust, neon, and other ambitions.
And the chair is there.
Silent.
Standing, not talking.
Just waiting for her to take the cushion
and say how her dreams do not come to her
often enough.