DEAR LILY,
You are my Venice kitchen back door neighbor. You are a toothless wire-haired crack-addict. You are a magnificent Watoozi Queen—misplaced. Your insomniac obsession makes you sweep the gutters on Rose Avenue all the way down to Borofsky’s clown—every night until the break of dawn. By sunrise one more over-used excuse-for-a-broom finds its place on my roof, tossed like a grand finalé or an offering. I’m never quite sure. By weeks end there are seven or eight more collected— a bunch of Pick-up-sticks just waiting to slide down. But they never do. They just keep pilling up like reminders...

LILY— IF I COULD, I WOULD gather the dust of all those thoughts that lead to nowhere and place it in a magic hand that could turn it into possibilities. I would rise above ridiculous fear, hate and unrequited love and divvy out kindness, equally across the land— some for you, some for me. If I could, I would drown out the somber pitch of loneliness with comfortable whispers weaving about golden leaves of Intelligent Trees. I would also of course like to fly like a bird and swim like a fish in the bluest, deepest sea. If I could, I would fine tune the gaze and peer towards that Light they brag about in old books and fairy tales. If I could I would get the head out of the sand, bury the hatchet, cross the bridge that was thought to be burned, but really only forgotten. —MO