She fumbles through
a decade making sculptures
from leftover cardboard cores
(exposed when the toilet paper rolls
run out) with empty flax seed bags
tucked inside them.
Sometimes ground. Sometimes whole.
Sometimes the seeds themselves
become part of the piece.
Predating pandemic solitude,
sunshine would filter through
half open venetian blinds.
She would configure and reconfigure
her found materials
into premonitions
about what the day outside might hold.
Rarely repeating the form
or ink she used to write the words
that would become the glue
to hold it all together.
Always invisible—
mostly sympathetic. Messages
only oak galls can whisper.
Only a little blue vitriol can decode.
And the tallest trees
in urban pocket parks
would bend and moan.
Every poem ever written
is a form
of steganography.
Dedicated to MSR Design: A collaboration of exceptionally talented designers whose passionate commitment to people and the planet defines the design of their510 Marquette studio. I am blessed to be part of this we.
Remember how I looked
when you discovered me? Neglected.
In the midst of an identity crisis.
Did I want to return to my roots
as a Federal Reserve bank?
Revert to non-descript office space?
Did I want a garden
with artificially flowing pools
of water + ficus trees growing
inside me again?
Remember how you listened to me,
recorded all my stories,
examined my skin + bone structure?
How you noted the bird cage façade
+ traces of my original travertine floor,
so you could help me
help you help us
identify our future?
Remember how you found
reclaimed marble
to enhance my surfaces?
How you are magicians
who know how to turn walls
into windows.
With that patch of transparent skin
you gave me, I became an open book
for the world to observe you
in the act of making more of me.
Remember how you ensured
I would not become too precious
or unapproachable? How you filled me
with informal + inviting lounge areas
for gathering + contemplating
your particular brand of poetry
infused with 3D + VR?
Remember how a birch forest inspired you
to create my visually + tactilely compelling black box core?
Remember touch?
Remember how we chose the perfect
combination of petals to allow us
both to blossom well into the future
in harmony with everyone, everything,
and everywhere? Remember
how you gave me super strong lungs?
Then it happened.
I didn’t understand.
Suddenly, you all had to leave.
You closed my doors
because you had no choice.
I tried to be brave.
I know you did too.
You made my lungs even stronger
+ rearranged me so you could spread out
more when the time would come
for all of you to return.
Remember the uncertainty + fear? Remember how an ebb + flow of you
kept me company as time went on?
+ yet so often I was all alone,
+ each of you had to navigate
your own way through the solitude + grief.
+ make no mistake—
this was a time of grieving
all that we lost
+ how everything
that was beginning
got put on pause.
As I listened to the trains pass
between stations below,
I didn’t give up hope.
Remember when that photographer
Iwan Baan came along
to capture the amazing
messiness of people
inhabiting buildings
in ways imagined + not?
Remember, I exist
not just because of you—
but for you.
I have waited patiently for you to return,
so you can rescue + transform
other spaces like me into beautiful places
that delightfully intertwine
the narrative threads
of past, present, and future.
Remember me? I remember you.
Welcome back.
My pronouns are we + us once again.
I dig out the tiny Hudson key, open
the mailbox, pull the contents
from the slot, some spilling
into a puddle
of print at my feet:
clothing catalogs, restaurant flyers,
a credit card application,
a nonprofit appeal for donations,
and one white envelope with
handwriting in black ink.
A real letter. A radical act.
Return address Honolulu, HI.
Before opening it, I pause
to consider the miracle
that is an old college buddy
who has committed to writing
and mailing a letter to a friend
each of the first 100 days
of the year. It’s round two for him.
And I’ve made the cut again.
An art form I once dedicated myself
to with a religious fervor.
Who knows how many I composed
during the peak years
between 1972-1994.
Boxes filled with replies
in all dimensions and thicknesses
stored in my closet.
I’ve saved them all.
Okay, there was that one
I ripped up and returned to sender.
(I kept a photocopy.)
Hundreds from my first pen pal,
my grandmother. Just as many
from my mother. Dozens and dozens
from my sisters, even a couple
from my brother. So many gems
from my father
I still don’t have the courage
to reread almost a decade
since his death. A potent mix
of loving guidance
and mirrored reflection,
soul responding to soul.
And all those missives from friends,
spanning bridges of time,
from elementary school
through college and beyond
to those years
in New York City and New Haven.
And those first few in Minnesota.
Love letters from old flames.
Could there be a greater
romantic gesture?
A conglomeration of little anecdotes
and philosophies and emotions
exposed on paper.
I can hear the voices of the departed
sing with a simple unfolding.
I dwell in the delight
of the slowed
pace of it all.
Then I snap to.
Time to read Tim’s letter.
I know it will sparkle
with light and humor and a deep well
of unabashedly honest thoughts.
It will be a window opened
just enough on a cold March day
to capture a momentary gust
of who this person, Tim, is.
I savor the old anticipation
just a little longer,
then expertly slice open
the top of the envelope with my finger.
Like riding a bicycle.