Dear Leslie McDonald
Dear Leslie McDonald
of 3685 Fredonia Drive
Los Angeles, CA 90068,
I bought your copy of Jim Harrison’s Wolf
in the Daedalus Bookshop in Charlottesville, Virginia.
At $6.78 I considered it quite the fortuitous find.
From the pristine condition of its binding and pages
I deduce this to be a low-mileage model, you being
that sole-owner living faraway on the alter coast.
Dear Leslie, how did your Wolf get so far from home?
Were you a student at the university? Or maybe your
son or daughter had packed the book by mistake
and traded it in for a copy of the Twilight saga?
Although I once knew a male with your first name
I’m inclined to see you as of the grander gender,
a smooth creature who can love without words. Still, I’m slightly stumped you stamped your name and address inside the front cover in dark, bold ink. It adds an air of dominance, like one might possibly find lurking in the shadowed lanes of Fredonia Drive. There’s not a single underline, no highlighted passage, no asterisks or stars, leading me to think you devoured it clean, possibly read from cover to cover beneath a California moon. Then again there’s the thought you never got around to reading such a swaggering, cocksure book, a sad thought I’d really rather not entertain here on my very happy 47th birthday. In closing, dear Leslie, let me say thank you for being a steward of this gift, even if for only a brief season. Finding it reassured the aging me of something I want to believe but do doubt from time to time – that books and wolves often appear when the age or moon is right.
a smooth creature who can love without words. Still, I’m slightly stumped you stamped your name and address inside the front cover in dark, bold ink. It adds an air of dominance, like one might possibly find lurking in the shadowed lanes of Fredonia Drive. There’s not a single underline, no highlighted passage, no asterisks or stars, leading me to think you devoured it clean, possibly read from cover to cover beneath a California moon. Then again there’s the thought you never got around to reading such a swaggering, cocksure book, a sad thought I’d really rather not entertain here on my very happy 47th birthday. In closing, dear Leslie, let me say thank you for being a steward of this gift, even if for only a brief season. Finding it reassured the aging me of something I want to believe but do doubt from time to time – that books and wolves often appear when the age or moon is right.
I hope she responds…