A LETTER HAS ARRIVED

By Ben Greenman

from forthcoming collection, as yet untitled

A Letter Has Arrived—

Dear Sir, 

I have half a mind to climb up to Cracko Hill and try from there to see the stars. I used to go there when I was a child, and recall quite clearly that once upon that spot stood a venerable old oak, which seemed to me at the time to be a thousand feel tall, and mightier than the tallest stone tower. I have that comparison in my mind because of a cousin of mine who was once imprisoned in a tower. That one was only a few stories tall, and in fact it was a silo behind her parents’ house that had been converted into a guest house, and she was not imprisoned there so much as she was a resident, and she spoke of the place fondly, dubbing it a “lighthouse of the land,” and she threw great parties there the summer after college, and one of them gave me the occasion to be reintroduced to a man named Matthew Gatterson, and within three weeks of that meeting we were carnally involved, and within three months we had added a mutual romantic bond to the mix, and within the year we were living together, and last year we were married. We honeymooned down the coast. Thank you. That’s very nice to say. At any rate, I have been telling Matty about Cracko Hill, and the ancient tree that once grew on that spot, and he asked if I could take him there, and I half-smiled and tilted my head so that his request slid down into the space between us. I think that I was practicing irony, or seduction. Later that night, when I thought about it, I realized that he was probably serious. Matty usually is. And so I appeal to you to help me find my way back there. Is it north or south? Is it where it rains constantly, or where the earth is scorched and dry? Please help. It is all so long ago.