Greetings from the Black Forest and the Bavarian Alps!
writes Ed, and his wife, Missy, from Germany, Luftpost

In America, Ed rides a bicycle, like a master
who happens to be, maybe, eighty years old

Missy says: you may come over at any time, except at two
That's when Ed stares at the ceiling

Yes, Ed says, I stare at the ceiling at two

I must consult the muses about that, Missy often says

My wife often consults the muses says Ed

And Ed wears a helmet

From Ed: life is hard work and drifting

And the postcard reads: schwarzwaldgrüß

From Missy: life is drifting, and of course, hard work

And the postcard shows: tender mensche, a bonny basket of kirsch wässer
in her basket, and meat, daisies, a bunny beside her, a mushroom

And the mushroom red, and dotty

When Goethe said: the eternal feminine draws us onward
did he mean Missy, Missy

for Ed?

and Ed whistling pure
kindly out of tune
Kinderschenen from high
atop his bicycle coasting
the last mile mostly
home

Welcome home, Ed

There are really only
three people in the
world that I care about
anymore.

The first is the guy across
the street who works
in the convenience
store and who serves
me the most incredibly
righteous blue raspberry
slushees--

You could almost say
he designs them, like
a famous French designer
of fine women's clothing.
Or you could say that he
sculpts them, like a famous
French sculptor of fine
French sculpture.
You know how women
swoon at art galleries?
I think it is because they
always keep the
thermostat
up too high,
especially in
France.

The second person who
I love with all my heart
is my mother. Now by
saying 'my mother' I don't
mean my mother per se.
When it is cold at night and
it is winter and the few
remaining leaves hang
precariously on their branches,
it is clear that everyone is
a mother. Even fathers.
Or everyone is my
mother. Even basenjis,
the yodeling dogs.
Everyone can say
that, and 'my' becomes
everyone instead of just me.
Yodel-ay-ee-hoo.

The third person I care
most about is this strange
English dude who, at the
end of the nineteenth century,
stopped taking pictures of
ghosts and started taking
pictures of himself levitating
wicker chairs while he stared
deeply at them with his beard
and all of that. More women
fainting, etc. Lots of staring
and whatnot.

I just looked at him do it, in
a magazine. I always hold the
third position of love open.
I usually fill it with the last
person I saw. That's only fair.
It's important to keep an
open love mind.

Of course it can be anyone else,
too. It just depends on where the
love is. Except for my mother or
the guy at the convenience store.
Their seats are taken.That goes for
any mother of course, and any guy
at any convenience store anywhere
in the world, where righteousness,
served icy cold, usually pretty blue
and frothy at the rim.

Who was it that said that all of this + froth
is a way of life, filled with love for three?
Probably he.

I could see by
the way that you
turned your eyes
down to the ground
that you did not like
being called a
marshmallow floating
in a river of butter.

We are so different.

I thought it was a
compliment and I wish
that I had said it.

You thought it
was not a compliment
and you wish that it
had never been said.

I like toast with honey
on it.

I do not think that you will
ever tell me if you like
even toast, much less when
it has honey on it.

Or who said it. Who did say it?

I walk home and feel sad
because I cannot think up
things like marshmallows floating
down rivers of butter.

You ride a bicycle home and eat a
marshmallow as you look out the window
at the sun sparkling like diamonds
on the buttery river. My buttery river.