Postcard*, and: It Wouldn’t Be Make Believe*, and: Character* Wendy S. Walters (bio) POSTCARD* Please refrain from misery. Every mouth, a mystery.All my dogs done climbed your tree. We are louderthan we expected to be. Treat kindness as small horses,oranges as false proof. And kindly curb your history,or walk a fugue: I am a dog. I am a dog, too. But cloudier—I am not a dog! I am not a dog either! Form is loose:inverse as catastrophe for guaranteed delivery off-courseis the velocity of feather and ash, slight as sympathyfor fear or frigidity, those tender tails. We are prouderof the approximation of footprints where pause forcesmetaphors of distance. Courage, darling. This is a truce.Erase the sharpest line on this postcard, sign any name,or call me when. Punctuate () with a comma, a noosefor a hanged promise. Or call me (), if it sounds the same. [End Page 327] IT WOULDN’T BE MAKE BELIEVE* Bluebirds nest in dead trees, if eggs bloom the moon.An architect puts an egg in a cardboard tube to provethe sky always follows her home, and a bluebird sitson an egg though it is not his, though he sings in tunewith its drab mother. And an egg is a poem shovedin the pocket of the architect, opened up like a raceacross America, wherever that is. And a poem is spitfrom the lips of a 10 yr-old girl who said no too soon,or slips out of the glove of a 33 yr-old woman who movesas if she is planning to fake her own death, or getsstuck in the teeth of a 52 yr-old man searching facesof strangers at the mall for the eyes of his son. Anda poem says, if you fall, you will. The architect placesthe moon in her pocket, calls home when she can. [End Page 328] CHARACTER* Because I was wrong to bring up the past,I have drawn a version of myself whodoes more being subject than implement.Please think of her hands in place of obscureinnuendoes or unsolved mysteries.You may have seen her wandering through herefor atmosphere, how she sweetens my grimintrospection. Give her your guilt, and shewill do no harm to the past, your safe distance.Invite her to recount her evanescence,even after the writer edits downour girl’s memories to a pileof cracked windowpanes: ice where the prismbroke, glass where water abandoned vigor. [End Page 329] Wendy S. Walters WENDY S. WALTERS—poet, prose writer, and lyricist—is author of Troy, Michigan (Futurepoem, 2013), and Longer I Wait, More You Love Me (Palm Press, 2009). She has also published poems and prose pieces in a number of periodicals, including Drunken Boat, Seneca Review, Seattle Review, Harper’s Magazine, Iowa Review, and Callaloo. Her music lyrics have been performed across the USA and in Europe—e. g., by the Pittsburgh Symphony, Fulcrum Point Ensemble (Chicago), Weil Recital Hall at Carnegie Hall, among others. Her many honors and awards include fellowships at Yaddo, Bread Loaf Writers’ Conference, Cave Canem, and McDowell. She is an associate professor of literary studies at New York City’s New School, where she serves as Chair of Writing and Co-Chair of Literary Studies. Footnotes * Originally published in Callaloo 27.2 (2004). * Originally published in Callaloo 27.4 (2004). * Originally published in Drunken Boat 18. Copyright © 2016 Johns Hopkins University Press