it, pausing where I have crossed words out. I sound breathy
and unsure. Brilliant, brave, heroic, you are so wonderful to
want me, I say.
So wonderful, so wise, so brave, so pure, so true, so smart, so
brilliant, so intelligent, so discerning, so unique, so heroic, so
honest, so sensitive, so good, so so you are you are.
So kind, so gentle, so tender, so intuitive, so sweet, so fine,
so vulnerable, so so you are you are.
129
The adjectives are all implicit, crossed out on the index cards
but whispered under the silence of the dead pauses, massing in
clusters under the throat.
*
Tell him, she says, my guardian, my friend, standing between
me and disaster, tell him that he alone of all the men in the
world has the brilliant and incredibly courageous capacity and
talent to. . .
I say that he alone— pause— breathe— breathe—is well
I don’t say this easily— breathe— breathe— he alone—
breathe— pause— breathe— has
the— breathy— breathy—
talent— pause—
I know, he says, voice undulating.
Oh, I say, breathy, breathy, talent, pause, breathy, breathy,
courage, it’s so hard for me to, pause, pause, say this, breathe,
breathe, but he alone.
I know, he whispers, voice undulating, rushing through the
trees, wind at dusk, carrying chill. I know. I will take care of
you now, he says, and hangs up.
*
Tell him, she says, this woman who stands between the abyss
and me, who believes in me, who year after year stands with
me so that I will write, tell him that you trust his judgment
implicitly because he is so special and that his incredible mind
and phenomenal intellect and brilliant ability to. . .
I say that I trust, I breathe hard, I trust, I pause, I trust him,
breathy breathy pause, and his mind is— breathe— breathe—
well it’s not often that I can honestly say— I breathe— pause,
pause— breathy, breathy— his intellect and ability—
I know, he says, breathy, undulating wind rushing.
*
He has to believe that every idea of mine is his. This is the art
of being female, but I have lost it. She tells me what to say, I
write it down, I cross out the adjectives, I say it, I read it,
breathy, full of raw nerves: but in his world the breathy pauses
mean fuck me, the misery in my voice means fuck me, the
desperate self-effacement means fuck me.
