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Birth poem for Solomon Grundy

*

I remember him taking Latin in year 1 of University, but for the life of me
I don’t remember tying my shoes. Did that happen? In year one?

*

He sits on the bench and she opens up her notebook/heart to him

She says let me show you my diamonds

They are like travel slides from a long and difficult journey

Pink and brown
Red and even more red
She says they represent the land
Little pieces of me

Here is my engagement

In the middle she puts the clocktower, with its tall, perfect spires

*

Now, here is the real church
A birthstone

This is not a place you can get to before me

She says think of it as a leaf
Think of it as pristine

We must extoll its blessings

It is like a relationship
The way things partly worked out

The way there is a lack of devastation, over here

The way there are rules, there are rules, there are rules

*

It is sinister though

The look in the bagman’s eye
Tom Selleck or Thomas Magnum
Sent to collect from her

Hairy chest and mustache
His warm tropical shirt contrasting
With her cold gray one

Does she have money
What will he do with her
Will she fit in the back of the car

He’s contemplating the book cover of the book she’s reading
Dostoevsky’s The Idiot

Probably not a book he’s read before
Probably not

She asks, have you read this page
Have you read this page

He doesn’t think so
They go on and on
And meanwhile the jewels shake in her hand
And she’s not even sure if she can remember him

She says
Come back in a week
I’ll have it then

*

This punishment though
This stone
If she acknowledges it she is done for
If she ignores it she is a fake

There is the moon
It is her headrest

It is the hardest one
It feels like a fist

This bright calamity
That is what she would call it if she had a name for this thing

It is bloody, bloodred, blood blood blood
Blood blood-moon

*

What if
He’s thinking of her?