memory is just hips that swing
like a clock
the past projects fantastic scenes
tic/toc tic/toc tic/toc
fuck the clock!
― Patti Smith, “Babel”

Ghost Dance. Chinese lanterns. Opium Wars. Wild strawberries. Cinnamon stick triangles blowing in the window. Walking into a thrift store on Grand Street on a Sunday morning. Alone, with a coffee. The girl behind the desk is bundled in a hooded sweatshirt. She’s got a record player on the desk playing Tattoo You. So, i stay. And i remember a story you told me the last time i saw you, about being upstate and tired and fucked up and it was dark outside and you sat down next to a girl who was playing a record on a picnic table. The moon was shining and you were by a river and you told her, “Look, I don’t want to talk to you. i just want to sit here and listen to this.” i wish i could remember which record it was. That’s totally something i would remember.

“Little T & A” comes on and i realize, embarrassed, that i’m singing out loud. My Mom used to sing this to me when i was little–just the chorus line. She can’t possibly have known what song it came from, but it worked some kind of magic anyhow. Sleeping on the beach in the back of their truck. Fishing for shrimp on the dock with a bright light and a net. Ponytail fern. Snapdragons. Flashlights. Tents pitched on a bottom bunk. Air conditioning. Palmettos. That old sewing machine she kept her make-up in. And yes, carrot flowers. Greyhound Bus. Headphones. A very pretty copy of the Catcher in the Rye from that decent used book store you guys had. i wish this place sold chandeliers. Something made out of driftwood and sea glass meant to slip into the top of a teepee and to run on campfire light. It seems like the kind of place that would have something like that. Here’s an old memory: yours, not mine–you riding around in a van all night with some band you guys were on tour with. You happened to be in Gainesville, and they kept a cassette tape of Tattoo You on repeat. Of course you were into the Stones, and were excited that they were, too. Maybe confused then by the album choice but not now. And it was such a good night.

The wallpaper on my desktop is a picture of Patti Smith wearing an obviously handmade t-shirt that says, “Fuck the Clock.” She’s so skinny. And her outfit is perfect. She’s holding a microphone and her eyes are closed. There’s a guy standing in the crowd–he could really be you. i originally kept it as a motto for my dissertation. Not because i’m taking forever, although of course i am, but because it suggests weird life narratives, kids. The other day i was reading the “invisible jukebox” column with Christina Carter in The Wire, enchanted by the description of her in a house filled with poetry books and her strange history, but then i woke up a little and thought about what she was saying about time, and i thought: maybe that’s what the t-shirt was always about? And this basement room and everything in boxes again and the shirt i finally bought with holes in it and the structural intervention that music necessarily stitches in time all felt something like relief. Making time. Stress on the first word. Making time. Stress on the second word. Okay. So, morning glories. Tusk. Cedar. Stars. Little Suzy.