xi

Dear Bloss,

I dreamt about you last night. Looking for you in a row of houses. Under a washing basket, in loamy soil were hidden pups I dug up with anxious fingers - mahogany, blue and some tawnies. And somebody asked another, 'Why don't you keep the wood in here?'

The man from France said he knew a dog raised on Sauvignon.

It bothered both of us.

So much love,
Me
X

x

Dear Me,

There is no d in pigeon.

There never was.

X

ix

Dear Sack Posset,

Below the library red date stamp saying 13 JUN 1985, someone has written in neat cursive above the author bio of Richard Brautigan - ‘Nail cutting scissors.’ They have written this in lead pencil with a full stop and a lush curl on the tail of the g. This is the only addition they, or anyone, have made to In Watermelon Sugar.

I feel something about this, about the exactitude of the three words, about their irrelevance and oddness, about the object described, about what it meant – was it a shopping list for one of one – I don’t know what it is I feel; I start to crest a vague crossness but then I think, the narrator, unnamed, may appreciate the precision in this one, and I remain uncrested, short of miffed.

Sea greetings,
Paeony
X

viii

Dear Louise-across-the-world,

It has been a whale day again. The sea has been holding itself hard blue and reckless, tight against the sky. A cold bear blue and polar caps. I woke from dreams of searching stark rooms and lay looking out and over. As gulls were blown about and pelicans imponderably did their thing. Drifting and wondering if they were hypnopompic humps once more but lo, those extraordinary tails exist in crisp seconds that do my head in. That I am here in a life, in a world where one wakes to whales out one's window. Propped on an elbow I play the game - where next? Whitecap or whale? And Huxley pushes his head through the arm triangle - always worthier.

Even in the kitchen, along that front - more whales and tails until disconcertingly I want them to be done, to go - the risk seems too great to be showing off such capacities for joy and life in plain sight.

Lemur nights and moss dreams dearheart.

Love,
Paeony
X

vii

Oh Louise, I just had to come running and tell you - I was zapping the coffee and there in the briny, the whiteness frothed. I thought I was dreaming whales out there again - I often do, it is so easy when the whitecaps are dashing about to imagine whales into them. No it is not imagining them actually, it is not knowing the difference and wishing whales into things. But I know you are a wishing-whales-into-things kind of girl and you will understand my not-nonsense.

I looked through the binoculars and oh, more splashing and gunmetal fins and backwards belly flops. Do your eyelashes get in the way with binoculars too? I'm still not quite sure whether it was a large large dolphin or an itty whale but my friend! In a instant you were here and I was showing you and waving hello and pointing - all the insides of excitement.

Kisses Louise today.

Sea Mist,
Paeony

X

vi

Dear Ellie,

Yesterday, buying a sandwich, the cashier called me 'Darling' and instead of inciting anger it felt like someone had seen me, momentarily, and offered a tender gesture in a lonely sea.

Moonbeams,
P
x

v

Dear Louise,

There is a girl at school with a gorgeous sprawling derriere. But I find it a very insolent bottom. It twitches from hip to hip and jiggles with a rhythm all its own. When it walks away from me, the sight of it bobbing along, singing its naughty song, makes me itch to teach it some manners. The fact that the girl it is attached to underlines vast sections of library books, in class, only serves to make me more irascible.

Fondly,
Paeony
x

iv

Dear Ellie,

When I take a banana to school and it comes time to eat it, I find myself quite selfconscious. The acute awareness of being selfconscious causes devolvement. Something about the banana makes me treat it tenderly, with a careful hand; it must be peeled and eaten a certain way, in a certain order. The fact that there is nowhere to eat a banana unobserved is most unhelpful.

You are in many of my thoughts.
Much love,
Paeony
X

ii

Dear Bloss,

I note that there is moment of perfection when drinking Jasmine tea. A goldilocks moment when the water is not too hot and not too cool, when the Buddhas Tears and temperature ally.

It is not a moment to pounce upon or court, and I wend my way to the moment maybe one in five cups.

Each time I find it, it's yours.

Missing you dearly,

P

i

Dear Louise,

I discovered today that when one lives alone, one should be careful not to choke.

I hope this finds you well.

All my love,

Paeony