by Eleanor Lerman
I will toil in silence
Who would write a sentence like that except a young girl who had been reading too much medieval poetry in a library
on Valentine Avenue, no less? She rode a bus to get there and knew, every minute, exactly where she was going
because at home, she had a typewriter A gray typewriter with hard keys, necessary for getting through hard years;
the young years. And one afternoon, one cold, white winter afternoon in those unforgettable years
she sat down at the typewriter and wrote out everything. All of it, every single thing You might guess what some of “it” was
but not everything. No one can know because the only idea—or result of an idea— that we have in common
is the belief that death will come in an Egyptian boat gliding on a black river; that death will wear a frightening costume and a bare face,
possibly resembling a predatory animal So what now must be confessed is that, in fact, she wrote more than what has so far been revealed:
I will toil in silence until the animals come with their killer faces. And then I will scream because at last, I am—you are—entitled to scream
Don’t you think so too? In that regard, I suggest that you read everything you can You will need the information
which is still somewhere to be found in the card catalogue: How to step lightly onto that boat How to ride facing forward
How to greet the Egyptians with their hunting dogs and jackals, with their belief in the endless revolutions of sky and seasons and stars and something else
that is terrifying and whole. In that regard, night falls only so that you can write everything down and then walk outside
A valentine lingers in your heart of hearts You greet the morning by loving those you loved: the invisible faces that no one speaks to anymore
but you
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