--CHOOSE A PRECIOUS THING AND HOLD IT YOUR HANDS UNTIL IT GLOWS

…This is going to take a while. Bear with me.
Here, sit here. Please, will you sit here for a minute, please? (Yes, I was intentionally trying to sound like Carver there.)
Here, let me get a look at you. Hey, you look really great, fantastic even!
Don’t be shy. Come on, you don’t have to be embarrassed. Lots of people would be happy to look as good as you. They’d pay money, have surgery, do all sorts of things. But for you it comes naturally. Part of it is your genes and the other part of it is your jeans. You have style and swag, confident yet a little cautious and politely aloof.
What I want to say, why I called you here is to tell you that I did mean to hurt you.
Not permanently.
Though, at the time I did mean to do damage somehow.
Now, today, I don’t know why I did what I did, but I knew then or must have known what I was doing because I did it, right?
See? It’s confusing, isn’t it.
I never knew I could be so hurtful. You must bring it out in me. But hey, don’t think that I’m blaming you because in no way am I doing that or meaning to do anything even remotely close to that.
So this is about me saying I’m sorry. This is about me Pinkie Swearing it will never happen again
This is about me learning from my mistakes.
This is about me becoming a better man, which I have already.
I wrote you a poem a while back and several people liked it and I even ended up reading it on some radio show thing that no one listens to, but it was fun(?)—no not fun, but rather it was comforting reading it.
It felt like you and I in the lake on an August day when the water’s warm, skinny dipping again, me losing my underwear and your dad coming down to ask, “How’s the water?” while I’m treading naked.
If you’d heard me read the poem that I wrote about you it might have felt differently to you.
For instance, it might have felt like a pulsing video screen changing colors.
It might have felt like denim or leather or fine Egyptian cotton.
It might have smelled like egg yolk, buttered toast, car exhaust or cabernet.
In any event, August is over and we’re here now, a new fall, and I have just one question:
“What ever will we do?”