Rodney Nelson

From a Letter to Bernadette

you have not forgotten how we went up Elden Mountain and ran in Grand Canyon that week I know, you gave me a book in time so I would think of it and who you were, Merseyside Irish, a beauty, or the Flagstaff we returned to, the elated screaming of Freddie Mercury wherever canned music played, Viva Barcelona, and my trail-wise nod when you told me over beer that you attended gospel meetings which meant you would not open tus puertas al mundo or me at the end of the song, that you taught in Oregon, we were talking, had picked each other up on Oak Creek you know the other day, Viva Barcelona, or the Red Butte we would camp at with your Irish whisky and my stick fire and no elation only quiet but I did not tell you of a man from Cataluña I had met who mentioned the poet Margall and that Freddie’s mania got me thinking of words he had quoted, their musicality, so you have not forgotten, may remember the peppery mild night wind of Arizona, it seemed to matter even if it does not now

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