If these cathedrals could talk: inventory

This hour I tell things in confidence. I might not tell everybody, but I will tell you. 

Your Communist Manifesto copy, your Buddha now balanced on my laptop. Tambourine, Robert Lowell, Mao, pile of flannel shirts, a 2-lb calculator, Schonbrunn Tickets, "If These Stones Could Talk: A General Guide for Cathedral Explorers," ("who are you indeed who would talk or sing to America?") your parents' wedding pictures, an apologetic letter from Icelandair with the sweet preface: DEAR ICELANDAIR CUSTOMER. Leaves of Grass, a stash of Sharpies, your diplomas, a Hindu goddess incense holder ("I hear the Hindoo teaching his favorite pupil the loves, wars, adages, transmitted safely to this day from poets who wrote three thousand years ago"), piles of pictures of your cousins.

The voyage of those who sought a New England and found it.

The EYES have it

As of this month, my left eyelid has been spasming for six months. I have had eye exams, used eye drops, had Botox injected all around the socket. Until I can't close my eye all the way. Until I can't feel the eyelid. I would do almost anything. I would go so far as to have someone place hands over my eye, the way my mother once placed her hands over a tree stump in the backyard to pray it away. She said it worked.

Addendum 1: In which I realized you will never come with me. In which I realized that someday, my eye will fall out (possibly into my open palm) and at that point I will realize I should have cared more about animals, about carbon footprints, about marriage licenses.

Addendum 2: In which I realize, "It will only get worse before it gets better" is probably complete and total bullshit.

Addendum 3: In which I realize, "How is a raven like a writing desk" has no answer.

Addendum 4: In which I reiterate to myself that you will never come with me. In which I pore over my dissertation with a magnifying glass, searching for clues like one would comb the beach for seaglass, which is not a natural occurrence, but is in fact trash that has been washed clean.