Which are you? Are you doddering Phil, drinking bourbon in the greenhouse, or do you glide through the alleys now, rain caterwauling off your hatbrim? Are you the shadow nosing just far enough past the doorway to aim a pointed observation? Have you learned to detect like Janus both the past and future simultaneously? It would look good on your resume.  I hear they have seminars for it, and they are brimful with undertakers, morticians, and raincoat salesmen.

While you were diving, I walked off with your wife. She was just a kid, knock-kneed as a pelican, or so I thought. You never know what you are getting into, with women. It turns out, they can have agency. This one, yours, I forget her name now, she had all of Jupiter storming about inside her. She had gravity. You know I’m no good when I’m actually wanted. You know it makes me go all racehorse in the gut. Anyway, she still left me first, dragging me like a polluted wing behind her.

Consider that maybe even we never truly know ourselves. I drew my self-portrait only after several interviews with experts who think they know me from the movies. Consider the subjectivity of how we perceive color. The sea is blue with oil and the fishermen, sunburned, who dip their nets in and out and in again empty, their necks blister with green. Consider that shellfish makes my guts roll up like a ball of yarn, and that you shall get them yourself and I will gnaw sullenly on yams.

Last night I dreamt I saved your life. You were drowning. I put my mouth to yours and blew as hard as I could, then punched your heart until you sputtered back up like a boat motor. In reality, I could not do this even if I wanted.

 - Humphrey

Dear Phil,

Thanks again for the invite to your office Christmas party.  Enjoyed meeting your assortment of solitudes, the whiskey, the slant trajectory between sorrow and a point unknown. Found it awkward to be the only actual guest, chewed noisily on ice cubes and made small talk with the venetian blinds whenever you wandered off to paw at a question. You may have seen me leave early. You may have seen me lingering across the street, hunting your women, haunting the empty bottles in front of the bars, granting wishes.  Who wishes for riches? Who wishes for fame? Who wishes for a breathing apparatus when they dive deep into fiction, a straw, a reed, a metal tube that spits fire? Will tell all the guys back home about your excellence as a host and aptitude for catastrophe. I look forward already to next year.

Salaciously,

Humphrey

Dearest madam,
It’s March already and the fire
danger is high—dead growth, old
winter, dry wind and etc.  So tomorrow
I’ll marry you. With water
we can ease the shock
of transplant. Sunflowers
and nightshade for you, if you wish,
radishes. We’ll thin our lives to their
strongest points. Good things will swing
toward us broad-hipped as cellos.
The long evenings will crumple
in our four fists like receipts
for small purchases.
- E

Oh, hello there,
I sorrowed much
to hear of
your vast affection. Physicians
say there is no
known cure.
Except maybe the
old wives’ remedy:
salt on your heels, red
cabbage in your armpit
(left or right), 30 years between
the walls of your father’s
house, eating red beans,
reading only reviews of new
appliances by a narrow crack
of light.
- P

Hippomenes,

we are out of golden apples, boy, Herakles took the last batch and we saw no point in making more. times are hard, boy, materials are dear, the gold is better spent on toothpicks and letter openers. no one wants an apple that you cannot eat.

so to win a fast huntswoman, there are a few things you may do for under $10. braid her hair. whip her dogs. feed her to the giraffe at the zoo (suggested donation $4). gum will sticky up the track, but your jaws will ache from chewing it.

another thought. have you ever had an artichoke? related to the thistle. it will sting sharp through her sandles, and such a queer-looking flower! she may chase it anyway, though it is just green. $4 or 5 for $15. a real bargain. (discount miracles not guaranteed successful) but you can steam for an hour and dip in butter and scrape apart each leaf.

& some women react favorably to being compared to choke-smothered hearts.

cheers, and let us know how it goes. will make a great story for the web site if you succeed. vegetables unite worthy suitor and king's daughter in failing economy. take lots of pictures!

all the best,
the Hesperides