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I’m Not Home, It’s Probably Better by Brenda Shaughnessy

By T.

11 August 2011

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I’m Not Home, It’s Probably Better
Brenda Shaughnessy

I am calling to wish you well. I am calling because I want to
change something I said. A year ago you asked me three questions.
I thought you were asking my birthday wishes and answered all
wrong. If you remember (if I know you you’ll pretend you don’t)
I answered:

1) No, I have always been homely.
2) Yes I believe you have always been too lovely for anyone to
bear.
3) Silk. it is not always expensive, and it is impossible to tear.

It’s my birthday again and because I am cleverer now I can answer
you with more nerve. But because I am still me I am pitiless
enough to have your number and call you with this excuse to let
you know I am still alive (I won’t push it by telling you that I am
wonderful).

1) Yes. Thank you.
2) No. I found it a most repulsive photo.
3 Same. Though I don’t think of you, still it’s a near-perfect place.
And so dear when ruined.

MARGINALIA

Waiting for things to be back to normal.

ABOUT BRENDA SHAUGHNESSY

Brenda Shaughnessy earned a BA from the University of California, Santa Cruz, and an MFA from Columbia University. She is the author of Interior with Sudden Joy (1999), Human Dark with Sugar (2008), winner of the James Laughlin Award from the Academy of American Poets, Our Andromeda (2012), So Much Synth (2016), and The Octopus Museum (2019). Her work has appeared in the Yale Review, the Boston Review, McSweeney’s, and Best American Poetry, among other places. (Source)