Issue 03

Alphabet of Scratches



from Alphabets of Desire & Sorrow: A Book of Imaginary Colophons


At St. Mary Bethlehem (which the world calls Bedlam), Jeremy Watt, shut up for insanity, discovered in a maze of scratches scribed by others’ lunatic hands an alphabet with which he might invoke things not apparent to the eye.

Alphabet of Scratches

The Window



I’m going to build a window in the middle of the street in order to not feel lonely. I will plant a tree in the middle of the street, and it will grow to the astonishment of the passersby. I’ll raise birds that will never flit to other trees, and they will remain perched and chirping to the surrounding noise and general disinterest. I’ll grow an ocean framed within the window.

The Window

Dear Johnny, In Your Last Letter



Dear Johnny,
In your last letter, you requested
. Take my photograph down, you wrote. Disremember.
Yesterday M started talking. All at once, as if inside, she had alphabets that ached to break
out. We were                                 and relieved. We               it would never happen. Johnny, the
tomato plant takes water as if in love, and a map upside down is still a map. The arrows,
,              . I’ve
.                placed Europe above the         .      It hangs like our                   .
Every morning, I
. I trace where you could be: Newbury, Canterbury,                 ,
Maidstone, Kent.         will bring you to another place: Merville, Pas de Calais, Caen,
. You are pushing through fields. In          , one cloud like an apology. I
think the word verdant, and it brings me closer to             . I       the word tomorrow. It
a falling body.                                                     . Johnny, I am busy          history.
We were climbing a hill in                   . The ice soaked through our mittens. I
. You                        . Johnny, the ocean has salt
enough without your blood. I feel your hurried fear, tendoned and tight. You make your
body small. We split at what seems              . We
.   Johnny,                                        .
There are so many spaces my body needs filled.                   Love, your dark-haired

Dear Johnny, In Your Last Letter