The perfectly banal postcards...

...that I sent home when we were last on vacation together so that you would have something to look forward to on our return.

1.

Darling,

 

In the Gallery of Redundancies in Wax, we were arrested by the lifelike sculpture of Dirk Diggler embracing the lifelike sculpture of Marky Mark.

 

“They're both Marky Mark,” you said.

 

“No,” I said, “only one of them is Marky Mark.  They're both characters played by Mark Wahlberg.”

 

But Punkinhead, what I want to know is, which is more redundant — redundancy or the act of calling something redundant when its redundancy has already been acknowledged?

 

2.

Sweetpea,

 

Tonight we attended The Symposium on Health and Parenting to support our parents, who were the featured guests, and to witness my high school health teacher, also a speaker, though I never ever supported Mrs. Bourgeois.

 

“Saran wrap is for keeping food fresh,” said my health teacher.  “That is all it should be used for.”

 

“Our sex life was great,” said my father.

 

You tensed, reached for my knee, squeezed it tight.

 

Your father seemed embarrassed.  My mother wasn't there because she is dead so get over it.

 

But Baby, I just couldn't understand what your mother meant when she said, “If you touch your husband like that at symposia on health and parenting, people will wonder what you do behind closed doors.”

 

“There are so few uses for Crisco, that to keep it in the house seems an unnecessary temptation,” said my health teacher.

 

3.

Shorty,

 

At the Museum of Futile Gestures we pretended to appreciate the retrospective juvenilia of that mid-career artist whose name I can never remember, but whose work we both agree transcends the hype.  We stopped before the installation entitled Do Not Comment on the Size of This Thing.

 

“She's really grown as an artist,” I said.

 

“Will you look at the size of that thing?” you said.

 

The screen said will you look at the size of that thing.

 

Love of my life, for the last time, does it, or does it not, matter?

 

4.

Boo,

 

This morning, in our luxury hotel room, in bed, you told me that I had kicked you during the night, in my sleep, and called you shit tits.

 

“It's Shakespeare,” I said.

 

“No it's not,” you said.

 

“Sonnet 130, Line 3,” I said.  “It's a paraphrase.”

 

“His mistress' breasts are dun.  Dun-nuh-nuh,” you said.  “Not dung.”

 

Punkymonkey, Boogerbear, Bucket Brimming with Cold, Cold Love, sometimes you are so distant that I'm just a tiny speck, and I am trying not to fail to evoke you before I disappear.