“The woman will sit eternally in the tall black armchair.  I will be the one woman you will never have … excessive living weighs down the imagination: we will not live, we will only write and talk to swell the sails.” – Anais Nin to Henry Miller

It was a gag,

or maybe not.

Maybe a seance of sorts,

a call to the past, or . . .

whatever it was, it demanded action.

I bought a tall black armchair

at a thrift store, one of its legs

slightly shorter than the rest,

which somehow felt right.

I placed the armchair in the attic

and draped a white sheet over it.

Drew big dark eyes on the sheet

in permanent marker,

and then a Rorschach blot of a mouth.

I laid a pair of my ex-girlfriend’s

black lace stockings on top

of the sheet, almost as an erotic offering

to flesh things out.

My ghost of Anais Nin

now needed sound

and so I

made a mixed tape of clips

of her voice

then placed a cassette player

with the tape inside

under the sheet

and turned out all the lights

in the attic

as I lit one thin long candle

which gave off a warm auerate glow

and then communed with the ghost of Anais Nin

for however long eternity lasts

in the world of one

who sails

according to Imagination’s standards

alone.