Joanna Gilman Hyde

The Tomato-coloured Recliner 4:30pm

Dear Bill N Lacy:

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You know why I handed you all those pathetic love letters while I was a student at Cooper Union and you were President?  I was youthfully in lust with you, no matter what the letters said, and you were correct never to have replied.

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After I graduated, I gave you hand-knitted socks (not knitted by me) with a note for cold feet, and months later you said, “I still have those socks –”

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I said, “Now you don’t need them –”  

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“Why?” you suddenly asked, and I sang out, “Because Now It’s Spring!”

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(I was about to ask my children’s father to marry me.)

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Two husbands later I am keeping up my record — this time for over twenty years — and the object of my attentions is a small leprechaun from Scotland with whom (I’ve told myself) I would travel to outer space.

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I hope this letter finds you well.

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Yours truly,

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Joanna