HARLI JAMES

Here is a grocery list: yogurt, beer, berries, cereal. Here is a doctor’s note: lay off the sugar, exercise. Here is a teacher’s note: A pleasure to have in class. I wish I had twenty more like her. Here is a boss’s note: Please send five copies to Mike Debruglio. Italian dinner, a ten cent raise, a half a year’s increase in one night. A pink flamingo, a wedding dress. Here is your best friend’s text: She is such a bitch. I know. Why is she such a bitch? She’s just insecure. You’re right. She wishes she was us. LOL. We are so awesome. We are so awesome. Here is your best friend’s wish: You could quit your jobs and start a wine bar in a little mountain town. Here is your mother’s wish: No one will ask her to do anything anymore because she’s soooo over it. Here is your wish: Someone would know all the things you do. All the kids’ birthday presents, all the kids’ doctor’s visits, all the kids’ camp forms, all the kids’ vaccines, all the kids’ picnic items, all the kids’ clothes, the bathings suits each summer, all the new shoes. Here is a note you found from your old boyfriend: Come visit me. Here is a poem you found that you wrote in high school: He is ache, the clean, he is the whole. Here is the excuse you remember giving your professor: My grandmother is dead. She wasn’t. Here is the heart you have: sqwunch, squilsh, plersh. That’s onomatopoeia. It means it’s alive. Here is a sign it was breaking: You waited every night on your front porch swing to see his car. Here is a sign it was growing: A newborn baby you wanted to ingest back into your womb. Here is the word of God: I am. You are. There is the burning bush. There is the face of the wrestler. There is the face of the dead. There is the history in the stars. There are your hands. OMG. What will you do with them? What will you do?