l
i
s
t

--{ some overly complicated valentine's day cards (both real and imagined) }--------

last edited: 021401

a rockin'-heart e-card
sent via amazon. the heart lobs up and down as the card bubbles a merry tune. the whole thing is so garish that it's almost deleted. but that would be a mistake. one click reveals classified nuclear secrets of the chinese, french, and canadian governments.
on seeing the 100% perfect girl one beautiful april morning
illustrated, typeset, and hand-bound, but not professionally so. two layers of paper for each page -- inside, the illustrations on pale green parchment, and outside, the text on translucent blue vellum.
a tan, smooth card
of human skin, stretched on a frame of recycled aluminum. a small, heart-shaped mole is bristly with hairs. the message, written in 18th century cursive with a dip pen, invites the reader to drinks on the townspeople.
a drunken, sloppy, dribbling note
declaring neverending love. how permanently we forget.
music
that old rodgers and hart tune, a cappella. rehearsed for over two months, finished in less than two minutes. sappy as all git out. appreciated, but not reciprocated.
me
wearing bulky sweater, camped in front of your very bourgeois one-level brick house in bloomington, indiana. with me is a transportable shrine, containing all your books and interviews. let me in, please, i bang on your door. i will write, self-consciously, about the experience later, in an attempt to dull the creepiness.
seven-course dinner
with beluga caviar, a delicate oyster soup, pumpkin-stuffed beet-and-spinach ravioli, and a berry torte. homemade. i suppose this isn't really a card.
two tickets to rome
rome, pennsylvania, that is. population four hundred and seventy five in 1990. bed, breakfast, antique-shopping, and the like.
fires of the alaskan wilderness
burning with the fuel of newly opened oil reserves. words in the flame are visible from orbiting spacecraft. they declare: "oh gale my love! this is how my heart feels for you! you and the elderly in california!"
this
for you, just you. happy valentine's.