building a mystery by building a mystery

My friend and peer, Larry Jaffe, has a phrase: Unprotected Poetry. It carries a lot of firepower in these flesh and soul prophylactic times.

The phrase came to mind this morning when I received a cryptic email. Cryptic because I don't know who it was from...the email address I responded to it at was already deleted. But the author knows me. Not just through my works, but from closer range. They described things that only someone who has been both physically and emotionally intimate with me would know, to establish their credentials.

To someone as driven to recall every contact with an intimate, it made me able to reduce the list of possibe writers to a handful. I am not physically or emotionally promiscuous, and thus I know who I know.

Of the six women I narrowed it down to, I know, approximately where five of them are right now (not to the exact room and building, but their geographic whereabouts and, perhaps more importantly, their emotional whereabouts.) Three of the five could have written this letter, as well as the wild card.

This lowers the suspects for 7,000,000,000 to 4 rather quickly. Beyond that I won't hazard a guess, as I would probably be wrong, suffice it to say I am curious, but not insane about it. The author is either quite literate or spent a lot of time constucting the letter, or had help...I took some pride in the fact that I have generally allowed myself to only get involved with a better evolved genre of the fairer sex.

The letter itself was reasonably brief, a litany of issues this probably-former-lover has with, not the poet, but the man. Curiously enough, she invoked Sarah MacLachlan's "Building a Mystery"...which leads me in certain directions as to my suspect.

I had never actually sat down and read the lyrics to the song, so I did.

When someone tells you "this painting could be you" you want to see the painting. When someone who knows at least an aspect of you tells you that a certain song haunts them as it describes you, as she recalls you, perfectly, you will listen to the song and dissect it like an unfamiliar piece of fruit, offered as a dessert item on a plate. Hoping it is not poisonous and tastes nice.

Perhaps this woman has me to rights, perhaps I am so many layers of contradictions that I am not possible. Perhaps, to steal from some guy also named William "there are more things in heaven and in Earth..."

The letter itself was not damning, there was a sense of gentle prodding to it, as though the author felt I needed to get on with things. I hope, whoever she is, that she has her life together and she is at peace and that her words were offered with the same love and concern that I would hope all who have known me know I would show them.

But I promise I will reread her letter and consider her words. An unprotected poet needs to know all that he can.