20091224

Penmanship

by Janet Dale

Not minding the stares or smudges, she’s going to fill a notebook with your name, written with twelve different pens. The black ink will swirl up to create your ‘A’ and trail back down moving into your ‘L’. She will write until her left hand performs the same sequence of letters perfectly – next she’s going to repeat the cycle in a different notebook with twelve more pens, but with her right hand instead. Suddenly she will stop and consider placing your last name behind her first. But her eyes will pop open as she remembers -- I don’t believe in things like love or marriage. Still every time she writes your name, she hopes you think of her just the same.

6S

Janet Dale, who blogs here, now holds a B.A. in English (Creative Writing) from the University of Memphis. Her favorite yoga pose is Savasana (because that's what graduate school applications make her feel like).