107. Reading } Brookline Booksmith

A former student of mine told me she works with nerves insensate. She took my hands and said, “You know about the mineralized heart, don’t you?” I nodded. “You’d think,” she said, “it would be ruby or garnet. Maybe a red diamond?” She looked past me, straightened up, released my hands and said, “Professor. So good to see you. I didn’t mean to take up so much of your time.” I said, “No, really—” but she was gone before I could say anything to reassure her.

I didn’t chase after, but watched her go—hoped maybe she’d come back. She knew something about [X], whose organs were found partially crystallized after she was killed in a motorcycle accident, and maybe something about the Crystal Geyser? The more I thought about it—how could she? That was another campus, another state.

Perhaps a practical joke? Could she be one of the handful who reads Little Stories? If she is, I include her in this open invite: A week from today, that is Friday, June 13^th, at 7pm, I read with poets Matthew Klane and Alexandria Peary at Brookline Booksmith.

Not such a while ago, Matthew directed me to Delete Press, where his book from of the day was published as the first in their Delete-E series. from of the day is more lighthearted, I think, than his previous books Che and B. He writes, “Consult / yr skeleton’s / raucous hollows.” Though my sense of what’s lighthearted may be sickened from years of laughter. Alexandria Peary is not a poet I’m very familiar with, but I’m reading her book Control Alt Bird Delete and finding much to like. The first stanza of “Lilacs as Chart”:

The purple & white bars

rising and falling

are on mute

around the cellar hole

There’s a lot of this mixture, bar codes and nature.

Bash is hosted by Janaka Stucky. He hosted the reading for Elisa Gabbert’s The Self Unstable that I took my eldest to see / hear. When he read his poetry, my eldest asked, “what does ‘Thus I perish in amazement’ mean?” To which I replied, “I have no idea.” After perusing Janaka’s Wikipedia page, what amazes me most is we’re the same age yet I’ve accomplished so little.