I was a teenage poet
And I will now attempt to speak of Frank O'Hara, not pink eye
I come to you today with a raging case of conjunctivitis, my first ever! My left eyeball is the color of bubble gum, and it aches like a head. I blame Ames, who does not have pink eye himself but did give me a cold last week, and I have since learned that the viruses that cause colds are also the primary cause of viral pink eye. It could be worse: I could have it in both eyes. Soon I likely will. But what has surprised me most is how it blurs my vision, and that having blurred eyesight is like having a streaky windshield not only between me and the external world, but also between my brain and its thoughts. There’s no treatment, the doctor says, the virus needs time to run its course. I should be good as new… in two to three weeks. What better to do, when you can’t see or think, than to write?
A couple of days ago, I decided to memorize a poem. I was inspired by Garth Greenwell’s latest newsletter, titled “How Memorizing Poems Will Change Your Life.” I’m ready to have my life changed, or this week at the very least. As Garth recommends, I hand-wrote my chosen poem on a slip of paper, folded it up, and I’ve been carrying it around, either in my pocket or in the bag I take when I leave the house. I read it at least once a day, and then anytime I think of it, I try to recite it from memory. I’ve found that a handy time to practice is whenever I use the toilet. The bathroom is as valid a site for aesthetic experience as any other room in the house, and I can guarantee I’ll be there multiple times a day.
Over breakfast this morning, I took out the slip of paper. “I’ve been memorizing a poem,” I announced.
“You mean like Thriller?” Ash said, not missing a beat. They were referring to something that had happened over dinner last night, which, because it was 12 hours earlier and all I think about now is pink eye, I’d already forgotten.
Just as we’d sat down to eat, a thunderstorm had rolled in. There’d been warnings about it on the weather app, because the storm was likely to bring lightning and hail, both unusual for Seattle. It was sunny all day until suddenly, around seven in the evening, the sky dimmed all at once, like a curtain falling on the day. June looked up from their bowl of Thai-Inspired Chicken Meatball Soup and exclaimed — that’s how quickly the dark arrived. And in that instant, from the recesses of my virus-infected head came something I had not thought of since the summer I was a teenager watching MTV eight hours a day. I thought of Vincent Price’s monologue from Michael Jackson’s “Thriller.” Then I opened my mouth, and
