Knowledgeable in the literary sense,

when a virgin she passed

through the threshold where questions are asked

Like, “are you really?”

She jumped into the lips entirely,

And giggled held in the smooth arms

And fed Chex mix to the wider, prouder mouth,

While Julie’s slightly larger hands brought the Mario brothers

Through looser pipes than hers—playing Nintendo

Around and between playing sisters,

Playing mothers, being lovers.

And giddily she(Christine) floated on the sidewalk laugh to laugh,

Talked to Julie’s friends, looked in her eyes,

Went dancing in leather and red sequins—

She and she—and talked of breasts and butts

And waterguns and futures and black lace bras.

And plays and utopian farms

Built improbably on the tops of businesses—

Scythe wielders walking the tops

Of the big “M” arches, sowing the wheat

To go into the burger buns.  That, she said to Julie,

Is our future.

Julie rebounded to a net of a long skirt,

Motherly figure and longer hair,

More confidence and calmness and more Karen,

Less Christine.   She(Christine) went into

The library and checked out a sentimental monologue

Quite her favorite she’s ever read--

Which she shouted aloud, or whispered when anyone came near,

 while pacing back and forth

On the dock at the lake.  She called, as Julian, “Don’t leave me!”,

For that is the character in Tiny Alice,

Who is obsessed with martyrdom and sex,

And has sex with God who is a woman and a mouse,

And gets shot in the head

So that God can grow a little larger

In a parallel universe.

From Julie she received

A final kiss and then went out with Charles,

Who held her hand strangely for two days,

Was sweet, wanted sex,

And took her to bed where she lay very feverish

And tired, before breaking up and breaking down

At two in the morning, not knowing any more about

Handjobs or blowjobs or anything else.

Well, she’s not exactly lesbian.  She’s more complicated than that.  She decided this morning that perhaps she’s a bisexual who’s been forced into asexuality through intimidation from both sides, rather like a football in the middle of a skirmish.  Don’t trust her sports metaphors.

She doesn’t watch sports.  She runs and lifts weights instead.  For a while—very late in her teen years, you’d be surprised—she got one-on-one softball coaching from her little brother.  She was awful, but wasn’t surprised at that.  Afternoon after afternoon, under the searing orange sun, her back to the hornets and the basement door(which was covered in weeds)—she’d get sweaty and red in the face, mostly from chasing the ball at high speed, after hitting grounders next to a hill.  Her brother got hot and bored easily so she mostly did it alone.  In high school gym classes she daydreamed in the outfield, and never let the ball come near. 

Her younger brother, who is sharper and more compassionate than herself, told her the facts of language, which are:

1) He hates to be interrupted.  It’s disrespectful. 

2) She should answer questions briefly, and only give more detail if asked.  

She had a problem with these rules, but seeing as she is not as sharp and not as compassionate, he could not agree.  Her problem with his process is this:

1)      She gives the short answer he desires, leaving the rationale out.

2)      He jumps to a wrong conclusion, inferring the wrong rationale 

3) She cannot interrupt.

As a consequence of these processes, she(Christine) has developed a stunting of language, which may appear on the first date as lethargy of thought.  When she stops in the middle of a sentence, she’s afraid she’s boring you, offending you, or intriguing you to the point where you may someday be disappointed.  She also wondering how, with this great wall of distance she’s built, you may climb over and kiss her.

This is the way, she thinks: Be Like Ally Baker.  Christine could write a self-help manual about that, but she isn’t going to.  The first sentence would be: Here is the glitter and here is the voice.

Ally Baker is whose picture appears in the philosophical dictionary under, “Theatre: Regaining Your Life Thereby”.   She’s a passionate and talented actress, about twenty-four, who specialized in playing old women in college.  Lady Bracknel in The Importance of Being Earnest.  The cynical grandmother in Sondheim’s A Little Night Music.   In college, she cared about the smallest details when she sketched her elaborate skirts, painted her water-color coiffures,  for Costume Design.  She would rather have half an assignment than a flawed complete collection, like an overtaxed chef who serves one course-- green beans almandine, say-- but makes it the food of the Gods.  Even when Ally is exhausted, you can sense her wild heartbeat in the much-exalted accent of her voice.  Her breasts are elevated and her heels are high and stylish.  She shops at thrift stores.  She can say anything.

Here is Ally’s glitter:

Over a time, unimpeded by

Car exhaust and family phone calls,

Boyfriends who lied in sympathetic phrases,

And the taking apart of her psyche by art

She manifested a choice—she would succeed,

And would be happy, and would need

No other than herself to be

Happy entirely.             

She is beautiful inside

And values cooperation,

Aside from her remarks which may be cruel.

And never hesitates to say what she thinks—

So if you judge her, remember,

She allows you to know what she is,

And that is something.

Ally’s soul, wrapped in a white scarf—dashed with red embroidery over the heart— is the essence of modern music such as might play in the best of clubs, early on a Friday night, where the dancers are abnormally beautiful.   Ally is a survivor and entirely sane.  Christine never understood her, but has been seeking her for years—mentally, of course.  (Psychic connection line with freeze-frames in silent cells, secured and brought live by synapses.)

This is the voice:

Ally can say anything.

No matter how crazy—not that it usually is.

And she’s never unintelligent,

Even if she forgets a date.

Her worst performance

Is a study in an apple

With one brown spot, but perfect

For a pie.

Where Christine is going, Ally and everybody would never tread, and what she is saying they whisper about in the coffee houses, because really(hush, hush, you know) it’s more crazy than bold.  When she walked into the paintshop one afternoon in college the scene painters for Faustus all looked away—all that intensity, pointed inward, shows in her eyes because she’s not that great an actress.  If she were, she would have pointed it outward, somewhat—like to an audience, friends, family, politics, whatever.   She would have told her friends something more than polite—true , and it wouldn’t have built up, that truth, within her like a volcano, to come out stained by the music and grit of organs.