You can find a lot of reasons to keep living in a crackly French language cult-film, you know which one. Thereās a man and a woman walking to the Main Street Pharmacy, in Lewisburg, Pennsylvania, a short distance from their home near the university. It is said that Isabel, Karlās wife, has a law degree or is a rocket scientist. Sheās more of a bookworm than Karl, who is a professor. Karl loves to think and type, and I can still picture him (from my car), after the bars have all closed down, in his low-ceilinged library. Itās illuminated like one of those nativity scenes in front of churches at Christmas. Karlās head tilted, the center of a quiet tableau, feet resting on a Mexican rug. On a table an antique globe. Itās when Iām still in high school and know better than to drink wine at one of their parties, with the artists and the musicians (I know some of them). I point at their back garden, overflowing with narrow paths, poppies, and holly hocks, and ask Isabel, Is that your naked baby? Thereās a small machine with levers and gears. For all I know, itās somebodyās heart. My own father was a breadman in this town. Itās 2 a.m. and I have a book about Apollinaire with Karlās name in it from a used bookshop on the square. I drive by it a lot and eventually go in. I swear that inside they have a whole corner arranged like Karlās private library, his room for typing and thinking. The books are all mixed up, tall next to short, āCā next to āW.āĀ I often think about how this town must look from above, white picket fences forming letters. To find anything here I have to keep starting from the same spot, next to the bridge over the wide river. A pharmacist in an officious white coat featuring his name, Jery, is mixing powders. Iām perusing the racks of pulp fiction, heās there with his assistant and measuring tools. I ask, Have you seen Isabel? Karl? He says, uneasily, Iām not sure I know them, a light of recognition in his eye. I scrape out landscapes on paper, with grasses, with train whistles. There are some bad gurus, for sure, but Karl, with his affinity for looping music, is one of the best.
Valerie has published in Juked, Cleaver, Reflex, Okay Donkey, Across the Margin, and other journals. Books include Poems for the Writing: Prompts for Poets (2nd edition) and The Rorschach Factory. Much interested in collaboration, she recently published The Real Sky (art/word collaboration), a limited edition, hand-made book, with artist Jacklynn Niemiec.