Dear Dr. Van Helsing,

Submission being a form of ecstasy…I am doing exactly what I can do: lying on my back flanneled in apricot gingham…feverish…beaded flesh so hot the word "furnace" emerges but there is no furnace a bundle of chemical reactions no need for fantasy with the physical world itself so bright and gauzy, blue radio on dresser olive Boy Scout shirt in closet, the foam mattress is so supportive…I sit up knees raised pressure on heels ass and back I lie back down eyes closed pressure diffuses harmony of traffic and birds outside the window…I breathe slowly let the nausea move through me in waves…circular cat purring gently to my left so intimate my knowledge of this alien species a marvel of sublimation…two drives seeking an object Š.

In his recurring nightmare KK runs into a movie star on the street…he always asks for her autograph and she always agrees…she's his best friend…then the moment of horror when he searches for a pen that never appears five o'clock shadow pricking my right shoulder comfortable weight of his leg across mine I ask him questions—but typing and answering the phones have left him too exhausted to speak, something that never happens to the characters in his novel promiscuous teenagers and mistaken identity you've got to keep the narrative moving—Dion stood outside the bedroom window of a woman he adored content to watch her form stirring behind the curtains a heightened sense of night the air brisk a perfect phase of the moon, when the extreme thingness of things makes them seem unreal for a moment he felt he had stepped out of his life and into a work of art.

Like Sebastian in Suddenly Last Summer I need to write my yearly poem, to condense the buzzing swarm inside my head into a lapidary nugget apples and oranges the thoughts won't separate and regroup into something I can hand around isn't she talented breathtaking witty au courant deep I know I ought to seize my life by the throat and get on with it but the pink sheet crumbles like a pink sheet and the cat's purr vibrates my ribcage object to object a rise in temperature a change in blood sugar can distort the construct almost beyond recognition…all the nagging physical stuff that spells out flu or fatigue, all the internal stress and giddiness for which there is no vocabulary, it's as if no one who spoke ever got sick.

Floorboards creak in the apartment next door…the comforter puffs me up immense with down, KK cuddling and nuzzling like a child who has just met Mother Goose…his body so warm and open his eyes closed, breathing slow the luxury of taking someone for granted I babble for the two of us explaining the days before pantyhose, those awful girdles that came down practically to your knees, garters pressing into your flesh—in gym class they made you wear these hideous legless blue jumpsuits that snapped up the front and all the girls had keyhole-shaped indentations on their thighs it was gross and I was so embarrassed they made you line up naked for the showers with just these little hand towels, you had to choose to cover the top or the bottom, they weren't big enough for both, most of the girls chose the top, breasts being somehow worse than pubic hair which curls so far away from one's head—flat—disappearable beneath clothes…it is the rhythm of my words not the content that matters, KK is falling asleep but I don't feel ignored every object in a dream is a piece of the dreamer it's as if the words exist outside the two of us like a radio or the room itself. In his dream we relive Jules Dassin's Dream of Passion he is the imprisoned murderess Ellen Burstyn and I am the great actress Melina Mercouri badgering him with questions about a past he doesn't want to remember…Virginia Woolf driving though Richmond and thinking "nothing makes a whole unless I am writing."

Dishes go sour in the sink…who could…do…anything…clothes all over the bedroom floor convoluted as a brain…fever burns through to a simplicity I need but rarely have touched…nighttime along the Marina sailboats delicate as wind chimes, the bay mostly black an occasional iridescent sheen, Dion asked, "What are those two towers over there?" His embarrassment when I said "the Golden Gate Bridge" after all he's the native born and raised and then there's you, Dr. Van Helsing, lulling yourself to sleep by reciting your list of fears no one loves me I'm all alone I'll never get published in a good place die poor in the streets of some horrible disease the process takes 45 minutes to an hour but works every time unconscious in your jungle sheets your dreams as frail as your hands. "Of course," you say, "this litany is the opposite of Zen" but I wonder—given free rein the mind that overgrown sentence rushes towards its inevitable pause, sinks into a comma, the second "m" like an extra chromosome makes all the difference coma comma coma comma sutra last night I tricked the cat into biting its own tail and giggled "uroboros."

My mind's as twisted and rambling as a shaggy dog story…I remember reading East of Eden in KK's bed…his books, in his bed, what could have been sexier…but where is the punch line…KK shifts, places my hand between his thighs the flesh is tender and lazy the way I like it. Even after three and a half years of marriage I rarely go there without an invitation, he has a big surprise: a hard-on how could this happen, he was falling asleep and I haven't done anything…desire implies a future I can't imagine: maybe if I was just tired but the nausea…I rub its heart-shaped tip…he says, "I just wanted to let you know." I roll into his body, flannel nightshirt bunched about my waist, make my voice low and husky like a black and white movie star: "Tank you, dahling, for zee standing ovation."

Love,

Mina

November 5, 1990