Tundras, rivers, real mallard ducks, glacial drifts, unthinkable views, unknowable heights, unimaginable polar bears propped on cardboard Tuesdays so unbelievably blue and thanklessly snowy—how would you like to be a piece of tarp held down by bricks over anything it doesn’t matter (fruit juice, an oil rig, someone in downtown Chicago). Just think—you could be undressing in front of a mirror. Or—if this is not your pleasure—if you are one of those people who likes to sleep off last night’s whims and fancies in an alley, surrounded by broken baby carriages—relax! you may have just been born. Or—you may have just won a set of keys that will unlock the door of a storage locker somewhere on the outskirts of Billings, Montana. Congratulations! For—not only will you be enjoying several lifetime’s worth of canned asparagus—but you, yes you, have just walked off the side of a cliff. Isn’t this relaxing?

*

Tell me—haven’t you always wanted to speak Lithuanian? Haven’t you always wanted to ride a camel through the Museum of Modern Art with a sack of manure and a flaming torch? Haven’t you always dreamt of making love in an elevator, while “Raindrops Keep Falling on My Head” plays in time to your panting? Well then—what are you waiting for? Ship ahoy! Come!—we’ll show you alabaster nightgowns and laughter green as Ireland. Come!—we’ll show you how to golf. We’ll show you how best to unbutton your neighbor’s clothing as slowly as the moon moves between the finger-like leaves of the mimosa tree. Don’t even breathe—you are already here.

*

Have you ever opened an umbrella when it’s not even raining? Just because you thought that morning was a park you walked through dressed in black? If so, then you know how it feels to smile in a hearse, how it feels to open a box of roses and find just the stems. This is not how you should spend your time. Just because someone said you don’t know anything about love or microbiology, you don’t have to swallow jagged rocks and give scuba-diving lessons in Death Valley. There are alternatives.

*

Have you ever heard of a Joshua tree? I would like to explain it to you, but I’ve never seen one and I don’t know anything about one. I do know, however, that saguaro cacti look like cowboys, but you know that already. Let’s see, something you don’t know…: Do you know that the gestation period for the blooms of a century plant is actually less than 100 years—87 or 88, I think. Do you know how many years it takes to believe that you are a good person? Seven. Do you know why people compare things to other things in a world where architecture and cheese enchiladas go so well together, especially on moonlit nights, out on the little patio section of a restaurant? If you do know, will you please tell me—quickly, before my next breath?

*

It’s too late. I am lost to you forever. Now you will have to roam the wide world over, selling Coke machines to small businesses. Now you will have to learn Spanish. And Italian. Now you will have to buy an exercycle and lose thousands of pounds. Hey, I’m just teasing—calm down. But you will have to memorize the P-Q section of the Encyclopedia Britannica, and recite it to the stars, underwater. I hope you’re paying attention, because… because you will never hear my voice again. Or only in train stations, and then all the voices you hear will be mine. “Will all passengers with boarding passes, please—”

*

I have thought of you all day. Do you know what, though—I can’t remember your face. I start to see it, and then there’s a highway instead. Or a little fountain in someone’s backyard. Your face is not a fountain, is it? Were we ever together? Are you a zoo I’ve never been to? With many black bars behind which jaguars pace and condors lurk, occasionally extending a wing? I hope not. Because, if you’re a zoo, that means I’m the rain which makes the polar bear retreat into his murky cave. And, if you’re a song about the sea, I’m a little fishing boat that’s lost, lost…

Now, recite it to me once again, the night we met. Tell of the gardenias, and the fresh smell of rain, tell of the highway robbers and how we stayed up through the dawn, reading instruction manuals. Tell me how our laughter related to the mountain roads, and the fog.

*

Once upon a time, there was a little girl who had the ability to change things just by looking at them. If she looked at a little piece of rope, it became a drugstore, and she walked in and bought a pack of chewing gum. The cashier became a paint-by-numbers set, and the only color was aquamarine. If she looked at you, you might become the mailbox to your own house, overflowing with weeks and weeks of mail, most of it junk mail probably, and bills. So on and on this went, the world changing bit by bit as long as the little girl’s eyes were open. Until, one day, she disappeared forever in a house of mirrors. It was raining outside. The taxi-drivers left their motors running and slunk deep down, with their radios on. And they all lived happily ever after.