Because my eyes fought their lids,
I closed them instead of writing
in the open notebook before me.
The other three students, all three
of them
girls, and I the only man,
continued scribbling.
Like a top set in motion on a wide
flat table,
winding down. I was already wound
down.
But the sound of pencils could have
been
the crawling of landed flies,
searching for food with loose
feelers
on a tree ten feet from me—
with my eyes closed.
The busy scratching. Foraging.
I imagined old parchment and
inkwells.
I smelled the newly spouting
fountain,
over the winged shoulders of
cherubs.
Water does have a scent, and
cherubs…
they smell like furious pencils,
writing letters to nobody.
Believe it or not, Nobody has a
address.
Don’t ask me what it is.
My eyes were closed, remember.
If you want to write a letter to
Nobody,
take a sheet of paper and scribble,
until you’ve sharpened three times.
Then fold your paper into an
airplane,
and just throw it into the wind.
Oh, and don’t look either. You
don’t need your eyes
to find nothing. Just send it out,
and on.
That’s just what I did, sitting
back in my chair.
I felt the pencil scratches were
mine.
Anything is me when my eyes are
shut.
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