Word Witch Rebecca Cook, offers up advice for your lovely little heart. If you need advice, you can email her (lunawordwitch @ gmail.com)
Dear Word Witch,
Are our bodies inextricably linked to our interpretation of the universe?
-Perplexed
Dear Perplexed,
Rub your open palm against your bottom lip inside out really fast it will taste very raw very copper very dry as your feet once dried caked muddied that was a good day, you see. It’s you. Look up. Your foot. The achieve of the thing. Your thumb. Or another fruit. Your mother’s bright spoon. What happens when the window opens onto the desert--you’re standing there an expensive pair of boots a hot wind you’ve dreamed more than once the brown bottle beside the cotton balls. A redhead blows smoke past your ear. You reach up and also to listen. There is a sound. A baby tooth. Your toe touches the face of a man who understood what it is to be good and it’s you again. Something you swallowed. Your hand, your fingers. The window closes. Cotton ball sting to blister. The redhead has blown past you entirely now. Briefly, you inhale. You separate yourself from your daughter’s hair your mouth from what will become of her. And you are born and born again a loop atop your father’s shoe. That it would come to that. And from it, too.
Dear Word Witch,
I am old. Everyone wants me to pretend that I am not old; to dye my hair, to go out dancing until the wee hours of the morning, to talk about Beyonce more and long-term care insurance less (if it all). I don't want to do these things. I just want to be old, because really, it's kind of a relief. How do I explain this to people?
-Please Let Me Alone
Dear Please Let Me Alone,
This hair this chin these forty fifty perhaps a century will sip its gin straight will come this way across the field what a fine rough linen dress she can afford neither caring the line above the lip the hairs there, that were not before time’s grip around the hip creaking the knee the softened what squishes weakened what bends a woman this one shedding sloughing the girl her world would be entirely without mirrors without paints and the hoists to hold her in, only a pansy in her hand the socket wrench she’ll plunge the sink herself now she’ll sit uncovered the blistering deck smoke confidently and fuck too the barn roof is falling in the staircase squeaks she walks up and heaves what was, what has gone quite grey, quite lifted of head quite refined husky boned and hooved fallen back into love, October fleshy, she smells the dusk stink relief a bottle opened and reopened and released its breathe very fine then shallow then, let loose.
Dear Word Witch,
I am distressed beyond reason at the tiny blond chin hairs that have suddenly begun to sprout with regularity. What to do??
-L of a certain age
Dear L of a certain age,
Tiny blond hairs are best gathered in late September best stored beneath the bed of your young lover’s house slipped into the chinks of the logs the lake the mountain, of course it would be France and she would be you again it would be snow again and your hair is long your breasts are themselves again by the window you wear white, you braid and ribbon and woozy lean forward catch yourself mid-romance catch yourself falling into the straw this time, onto the wagon this time, another world this time no hitch, no drought too soon, no veering off course a steady star you will steer clear over your golden hair, that promise those apples those fattened hams, the newel post, your hand encloses it back to the cusp back to that girl the sharp air to Utah before daughters coiled tight, before love, you can pluck them free of her and gild her again leathern her boots silk stockings turned down but such fine feet, still, wrists chin too and brows wherefore mourn this small basket of baby hairs?
Dear Word Witch,
Deepak Chopra says, “God is the union of all opposites.” Is this more of his blathering or is he onto something?
- A Seeker
Dear Right Reverend,
Begin like this. Bring a cheap silver dipper and a coil of rope. Walk outside your village and you will find a burro there, packed and saddled. Mount and ride west for three days until you find an open plain with no grass upon it. Ride into the middle of where you find yourself, dismount, stretch your legs and lean forward. One of two things will happen. A fount will spring up, or a hole will open.