Dear Wallace

Abstract

Dear Wallace Julie Choffel Dear Wallace, I guess you never had to listento a highway?It’s everywhere nowwhisperingthis used to bother mebut now I thinkit’s a reminderof bloodlines,kinship & elsewhere. Mostly it takes meshopping, anothertask you loveda little too? Here’s fruit, vegetable, bread. Fate in a dish, pending.Sometimes when I think there’s nothing and noone left, I imagine the folds of my brain holding something hostage.Negotiations useless.I wait it out. What did you sacrifice or didn’t you? What do you look intofor others? ________ Dear Wallace, Did you love trouble? Somehow,I doubt it. You cravedsilence like the rest of usbut you were seriousin your questto hear the entire cacophony seriously thoughhow did you feel about kids [End Page 285] I’ve always preferred the lowlier oaksto the lofty pines (all-seeingas they may be) those branches bowed over in sympathylike a lyricor a search party. ________ Dear Wallace, I wish you had written adesperate poem. Were you never? A regular, boring life. A regular imagination. A running listof palpable notions. ________ Dear Wallace, It’s true that sometimes the sun reflects brightly off the snowand citizens ski in city parkslike they just believe in things we are for real, you and I,about all the soundalready and not yet made though my frequency is lower: when the fox ran down my streetand through the yardit was all that matteredto the fox [End Page 286] we could swap theoriesI could make the noiseand you could listen Julie Choffel West Hartford, Connecticut Copyright © 2020 Johns Hopkins University Press