Dear Wigleaf,

I'm writing you from a bright Sunday morning in May, though the sun has already left the room on its way to the south-facing side of the house. Last night was the first of the year we left the windows open, and my husband and I woke to the trilling of a particularly assertive bird. We commented on it, and the bird stopped. I'm still feeling a little badly about this.

As I try to visualize where you might be when this finds you—jouncing along on a half-empty accordion bus while dawn filters through the scratched windows, or perhaps freshly collapsed on your couch with the pillowy arms and giant cushions—it occurs to me I don't know where I will be then either, or what might have happened to me in the meantime. As I write, I imagine a ghost of you, imagining the ghost of me writing you, this string of words forming the impossible gossamer that links us.

If you see a bird, please tell it the singing was beautiful.

With gratitude,
Jules