Dear Francesca,

On some days, I can see myself, refected on a spot of chrome on some corner of the city. I can see it, how the body swells with age. On these days I am a disease the light has. I am like Charlie. I can go only as a heretic to your temple. I can walk up and fown 12th Street thinking I can teach myself to see you there. You dare me to catch you. You are a sea urchin. You would roll over me, like that. That is the way a body betrays you, you might say.

This was not your city, either. How loudly you said so. I can walk up and down 12th Street and think of what I am not. How I am not. You were smiling the day I put away the camera. The day my body died. There on 12th Street I am afraid you will see me being, as I am, a ghost. It is not your way to leave anything untouched, any angle unseen. Your song that peels the paint off the walls. But I am less than that.

There is no way to give this to you. Forget it on the floor and let it disintegrate. That is how you speak to me. You only speak. You cannot see me. I am just a body. The parcel is too large. I cannot fit through the little hole you tore in the eye, in the firmament.

Give my love to Gerard. Do not wait up for me, as I am late. I am always late.

Yours,
-M