Love Letter to Scott Peterson

---

Scott Peterson, the man who was convicted of murdering his wife and unborn child, had been on Death Row barely an hour when the first proposal arrived from a woman who wants to be the new Mrs. Scott Peterson.

                                                  — 2005 news article

What was Paris like on New Year’s? I have a tin figurine of the Eiffel Tower, about two inches tall, & it’s the sorta thing I always want to keep in my pocket, along with a JFK photo in swan origami. Oh, & the fireworks! I bet the fireworks were something else. Like this vicious streak I have in me, were they like that? Diagrams hot with pride? The moment after they pop, that irreverent hiss, the kind hugging together two radio stations, a whippit in exclamation point. I love how a river tries to wind the colors together, but the sky is all gray skeleton, my body inside out & Velcro. Once I was told to chase my fear, but my fear is so close to my obsession, I can’t tell the difference, & that’s what led me to you, Scott. Do you believe in random acts of kindness? Gosh, you look so much like a brother I’ve always failed at rescuing. I’m afraid of growing old without someone there to take care of me, but I’m more terrified of being a mother. I get why you’d do it, if you did. Motherhood is just sucking desperately at an oxygen tank’s exposed, detachable breast. Would you ever consider getting married again? Wouldn’t it be funny for our wedding cake to be a chocolate bar, the vending machine our priest? I too am hated by the world — I’m a cat on fire in a metal drum. No one’s looking for who put me there.