I found Errington the other day. He was in my sock drawer so I got him out and let him drive around in the car with me. Please, come up here one weekend and let’s talk this over. I want you to come to Emory for the summer. I want you to do anything you want to do. I just have to study harder. My folks are spending a lot of money to keep me here and they can’t afford it anymore. I have to make better grades than I have been making.

I love you,
Malcolm

Dear Malcolm,

I have written you about a hundred letters since that weekend when I saw the face of your grandson (and mine) smiling at me from the ceiling of the room where you were making love to me. I have written you at least a hundred letters and at least twenty poems. What would you like to have first, a letter or a poem? I threw most of the letters away. But I will put one or two into this packet. Along with this tie which I bought for you for Christmas. That seems about a year ago. So here are four poems. If you read them and think you can keep on writing to a person with a mind this weird write back and I’ll send you a letter I wrote to you in January. It won’t scare you to death.

Love,
Rhoda

ONE THING ABOUT THE LIVING
EVERY NOW AND THEN ONE OF US
STOPS DYING FOR A MOMENT

After forty days it came back in December while the wind blew like Baltimore around this southern city. It came back. It walked around talking to gardeners, waving at football players, luring me back to your bed. It came back, colder, deeper, more terrible than I remembered. I knew the route it took to find me, the detours it made, the washed-out bridge, the dangerous ferry crossing. I pretended it was a cat wailing on another roof.

Later I took it to lunch. I fed it bread and wine. I gave some to Spooky and some to Irise and some to the football players and poured some into a letter and went upstairs and got into bed and held it while it took my arms and legs. I closed my eyes it grew heavier. I held still it grew heavier.