(7) We turn dandelion suns into heads of tufted wishes, then watch them blow away. We know it's never easy— the things we want, made from our labor and the drive to push beyond the moment's reach. I am three when my mother walks with me to a house on Palma street; she has agreed to have conversation drills with Miss A., the music teacher who speaks no English, in exchange for voice lessons for her, solfeggio and piano for me. Do-re-mi-fa-sol-la, her house smells of faded violets and the inside of dusty hatboxes; she herself is a study in modern confusion and old world manners. My mother puts her palms together and holds them lightly against her diaphragm, pulling her voice with the lungs, aiming for at least two octaves higher.
Applicant
Early to my Lord to Whitehall, and there he did give me some work to do for him, and so with all haste to the office.
Dined at home, and my father by chance with me.
After dinner he and I advised about hangings for my rooms, which are now almost fit to be hung, the painters beginning to do their work to-day. After dinner he and I to the Miter, where with my uncle Wight (whom my father fetched thither), while I drank a glass of wine privately with Mr. Mansell, a poor Reformado of the Charles, who came to see me.
Here we staid and drank three or four pints of wine and so parted.
I home to look after my workmen, and at night to bed.
The Commissioners are very busy disbanding of the army, which they say do cause great robbing. My layings out upon my house in furniture are so great that I fear I shall not be able to go through them without breaking one of my bags of 100l., I having but 200l. yet in the world.
give me some work
hanging the poor
who am I
I miss the army
laying out fear
breaking the world
Erasure poem derived from The Diary of Samuel Pepys, Monday 1 October 1660.
Allowance
(6) I am surprised to find I still crave tastes that last touched my tongue decades ago: I remember a night of thunderstorms when the power went out, and you opened a jar of fermented rice and fish which we ate with our hands. I am surprised to realize I know the recipe for a thing like this, though I myself have never made it. Sometimes all you want is the bite of vinegar and the sting of salt against a sheet of starch; water afterwards can taste like clean absolution. Once, someone taught me how to tell amaranth from asparagus, lemongrass from millet, mint from verbena; dandelion sun from head of tufted wishes.
Wordless
(Lord’s day). To our Parish church both forenoon and afternoon all alone.
At night went to bed without prayers, my house being every where foul above stairs.
day too is night
without prayer
everywhere
a stair
Erasure poem derived from The Diary of Samuel Pepys, Sunday 30 September 1660.
Allowance
(5) Our pockets full, we've been blessed with mystery and unseen presences. We should learn what it means to become the ancestor, but we are still so enamored with the million and one ways time is organized in this life of constant endings. The ice cream place closes at 10. and sushi restaurants make Sundays and Mondays their staff weekends. Trash collection in this neighborhood is Thursday, and recycling is picked up on alternating weeks. More than coincidence, serendipity is finding a doctor who speaks your language, a human who sees in you not history as baggage, who still opens to the possibility of surprise.
Dirt merchant
All day at home to make an end of our dirty work of the plasterers, and indeed my kitchen is now so handsome that I did not repent of all the trouble that I have been put to, to have it done.
This day or yesterday, I hear, Prince Rupert is come to Court; but welcome to nobody.
to make dirt last
my hands met
all that I have done
is welcome to nobody
Erasure poem derived from The Diary of Samuel Pepys, Saturday 29 September 1660.
Allowance
(4) You salt a magic circle on the ground, leave offerings of food and drink on the counter. Allow the porch light to keep burning but nearby, lay a water-filled basin—decoy and reflective surface. You want them near but not so near that they forget they're on an otherworldly journey; you want them not to lose their way, but imagine one more visitation. In the morning when the pewter bowl is filled with wings of little silver bodies, your sadness swells like the first time. Why is it so hard for us to leave sorrow alone, slip its many medallions into their cases? And yet our pockets are full, we have been blessed.
Employment
(Office day). This morning Sir W. Batten and Col. Slingsby went with Col. Birch and Sir Wm. Doyly to Chatham to pay off a ship there. So only Sir W. Pen and I left here in town.
All the afternoon among my workmen till 10 or 11 at night, and did give them drink and very merry with them, it being my luck to meet with a sort of drolling workmen on all occasions. To bed.
office is a birch
and I am the only pen
I work in luck
a sort of rolling occasion
Erasure poem derived from The Diary of Samuel Pepys, Friday 28 September 1660.
Allowance
(3) The call of owls at night, always interrogating. A fear of hairy tree demons crouched in the branches, smoking cigars. We went to school but left an opening, for in case any of that was true. Returning from funerals, we washed our hands by the door, in case the souls of the departed had followed our scent home. Under a froth of mosquito netting, an island from which to push off toward sleep. You tucked every fold carefully around the mattress, leaving no space. In the ceiling or in the floor, some houses held a secret door—one rusted handle coupled with an iron slide lock. Before the grownups retired for the night, sometimes they walked around the house perimeter, checking windows or scattering salt.
Tohubohu
To my Lord at Mr. Crew’s, and there took order about some business of his, and from thence home to my workmen all the afternoon. In the evening to my Lord’s, and there did read over with him and Dr. Walker my lord’s new commission for sea, and advised thereupon how to have it drawn. So home and to bed.
sand out of sand
the Lord’s lord
is sea
is the raw bed
Erasure poem derived from The Diary of Samuel Pepys, Thursday 27 September 1660.