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Fiction> Love
Letter
Love Letter
By Lauri Jean
Crowe
Published December 2000
March 3, 1997
Dearest Timothy:
I’ve spent the last hour fielding calls
from factory workers in ditches, seeing
how thin I can slice a granny smith apple
with my dragon egg blade, wondering why
more people don’t make use of the cyanide
in apple seeds.
Meanwhile, renditions of Beethoven float
through the dust clotted air, ice forms
on the window screens.
There has been a dead mouse for well beyond
weeks across the street from where I work.
Each evening I pass it as the sun begins
to set, have watched the progression of
its slow, torturous decay. Tortuous because
I know others are watching it as well. You
see, in these weeks it has not moved. It’s
frail boned body has remained fixed to the
concrete walk, arms and legs curled, but
for one right forepaw just above it’s
tiny head.
It died on its right side.
When I first saw it, must have been a fresh
kill, red blood still flowing from intestines
that ran out ahead of its stomache. The
whiskers still perked toward the sky. In
these weeks I’ve watched it as sun
dries, erodes its flesh. As white bones
begin poking out of flattened neck and belly.
As the cheeks became sunken until teeth
poked through the hollow walls and as the
rain puffed it out lifelike again.
These city streets see busy feet, in heels,
business shoes, the sneakers of small children.
They beat on the concrete in a cavalcade
of sound around the quaking dead flesh of
the mouse, though none step upon it.
They simply watch.
Before that hour spent with knives, seeds
of death and ditches, I went out to my car.
The mouse was still there, silent, eyes
long fried open and sightless. Beneath two
inches of ice. I thought of wooly mammoths
and you.
Love,
Lauri Jean
Although part of this
is fictive, it was a letter I originally
wrote to the man who is now my husband.
Love letters come in all forms.
Writer:
Lauri Jean Crowe is a freelance writer known
for such diverse topics as dreams, sexuality,
gardening, health and parenting. She is
a freelance writer, artist and designer
living in Michigan, USA. Lauri Jean welcomes
feedback at vu-writer@earthlink.net and
is seeking serious individuals who wish
to be interviewed about all aspects of sexuality.
To learn more about this writer and her
diverse skills follow these links
The
Living Herbal
Managing
Editor, Customs, Etiquette, Folklore
Contributing
Editor, The Art & Science of Dreams
Short
Story Editor at Mocha Memoirs
Index
of writers, the-vu
About
Lauri Jean Crowe's own dreams
Mythwell Survey
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