I want you to breathe all the air out of your body. Don’t keep any of it because then you’d
have some control left, something to hold onto. Inhale the moon, exhale the sun and then eclipse.
You can sit there as long as you want; stop looking at your watch. Listen to the man next to you chew his sandwich and the difference in chewing sounds between lettuce and ham. Recognize the rhythm he’s created. Get out of your body. Don’t clutch your pen so tightly, let it flow from letter to letter, feeling the contours of each word as separate and new as the ones before. Respect the words; they know more than you do. Once you let go, they course through you, adding their own heartbeat. You are responsible for two lives now; let them speak.
Stare at a piece of fruit until you are the pit inside. Be someone with no name. Imagine
what it’s like to be an egg on Easter and to have your identity change. I want you to open your eyes under water and look at people’s feet. Count their toes. Walk to the edge of a cliff and scream out the name of the person you loved but never loved you. Become lost in a place you know well. Say “marry me” to no one in particular. Be hungry, taste words, then write. When you feel confident and satisfied with what you have written, throw it away and write something else.
At midnight I will come over. You will answer the door in a top hat and we’ll eat potato
pancakes out in the corn field. With full bellies we’ll stretch out and move the stars with our fingers. We’ll be loose as children, free as ghosts, hearing and seeing things the moon only promised.

08/22/2004