From "An E-Mail to Sean"

So I
admit that the
You-Equals-I Connection
has been missing. Don't get down on
yourself

about
it, you know, Sean?
Something so beautiful
as your guitar on Leave It Dead…
the only

thing wrong
with it was my
vague lyrics.  We talked once…
remember tacos and Karen,
brown shag

carpet,
Healy Street and
waxy fallen prophets?
The cream colored linoleum
kitchen,

and the
photocopied
wallpaper, the naked
bodies, the showery white tubs?
I can

not see
one thing wrong
with a few black holes when
there is a galaxy breathing
before

us. Yet
if religion
is a worry, don't let it!
We can live with our fallacies,
can hope

against
the wind, you know?
I miss our talks about
music, poetry, life, legs, eggs
and chains.

Sean, we
could crash, could trash
the False Trinity of
You-Me-and-Selfishness herself,
yet I…

I can
see nothing wrong
with a few black holes,
when there is a whole galaxy
breathing

on us.
Regardless of
the fact that I have such
a dreary silence about me,
I have

been busy.
There was No Thing
as selfish memories,
yet I can't see a thing wrong with
knowing

that I
love you, that you
forgive me for that, Sean,
that you know I can't talk
sometimes

because
my emotions
tie my tongue up in knots.
Regardless of the fact that it
is an

Excuse,
I'm not sure which
e-mail was the last one.
Was it the William Burroughs
Christmas

card you
sent me? If so,
I tell you, what a card!
That elf gave me the creep-laugh and
I need

to talk
to you. Need.  Need.
Need to hope that this e-mail
isn't coming off as cheesy
because

I am
shooting for a
target of honesty.
Sorry that I haven't been there.
Sorry.

© Copyright © C. Wilkie-Tomes and T. Purdue 2001
"E-mail to Sean", a letter by T. Purdue, used by permission.