A Body in Time

Cello and the doorbell all going off at once. I open the door and there is a carefully wrapped package from Florida, USA, left on the veranda by the postman whose orange- clad back I can just barely see as his motorbike scoots onto Dawson Street. A gift for me on the eve of my 70th birthday from an old friend, an old lover. I sit, my back aching from my recent surgery, unwrap Skeezy's gift: an old boxed set of Replique, the perfume I wore as a young femme on the lower East Side of New York.

Dear Joan 4-29-10

So many years, so many accomplishments, so many memories. Yet we are still here, still talking, and still caring. You are as young to me on your 70th as you were on your 20th.

Enjoy this piece of your past that my senses will never forget and--have a very Happy Birthday.

As ever, Skeezy

Skeezy--now a grandmother several times over, and I learn over and over that the body leaves its touchings long into the time of our lives; thank you, old friend, for carrying that young woman and her perfume back to me.