Dear B,

Jennifer Militello

Two months of spasms and still I am not well. Awake is more knives than I can count. I was the one who shut the window. But all the dead flies had already come in. All I remember already got out. You are not the proximity I wait for. You are not real. I am small, but need to be watched. Have I told you a thunderstorm is like getting a million letters from you? Only better. Only more like beginning, not ending, in rain. Today, the cold is beating down the bats from their wings. What I say isn’t even close to what I think. It is much worse. Anguish grows gray as it waits in my throat. Like just before snow, when I can smell the holding back.