This is the face of an accomplished woman.
My wee jaunt to Indiana was no mere pleasure trip-
(though lovely and lackadaisical in the the extreme it was indeed)
the journey was occasioned by the graduation of one of my dearest
friends, whom I have had the joy of knowing for 16 years now.
I love her so. Here is one of the many, many reasons why:
Cold Day, Salty Fish a very short film made by her beau, Chip Warren

In case you didn’t know, Muncie is the real City of Gold.

Jewels line the sidewalk.

Desperately bored teenagers set fire to abandoned houses
in Francesca’s neighborhood- this one is right next door
to her house. It burned one night last October.

These flame vermillion poppies grow in the front yard,
growing fat on ashes and broken glass.

Laughing candy.

We took a tour of the Ball Mansions at Minnetrista, along the White River.
My favorite, Oakhurst, was the home of Elisabeth Ball,
poet, bookbinder, spinster and fairy-enthusiast.
This photograph is from one of her childhood
fairy tea-parties- as my friend Mlle. Bobisuthi
commented, it’s pleasing how disgruntled they look.
Elisabeth’s garden was a wild sprawl of mostly
blue and violet flowers, bleeding hearts
and many unusual plants I had never seen before..

A riot of pink blossoms entrances me!

This is my house, if I lived in Muncie.
It’s a grand Jacobean behemoth, crumbling into splinters-
it is my dreamy-dream We Have Always Lived in the Castle house.
“My name is Mary Katherine Blackwood.
I am eighteen years old, and I live with my sister Constance.
I have often thought that with any luck at all
I could have been born a werewolf, because
the two middle fingers on both my hands are the same length,
but I have had to be content with what I had.
I like my sister Constance, and Richard Plantagenet,
and Amanita phalloides, the death cap mushroom.
Everyone else in my family is dead.”

The garden is an exquisite tangle of weeping cherry trees,
redbud in bloom, and crimson japanese maples.
Boxes of books line the wraparound porch,
apparently abandoned. Peering inside,
we could see a terrible wreck-
trash and boxes and antique radios
looming in the dim.
Oh, how I wish I could live there.

I would sit at this desk in the garden,
swatting mosquitoes the size of dragonflies
and write you a letter.