“xxxx.”

Those are kisses. He put them in a package and taped it up.  On the box there were stamps with the Virgin Mary’s face.  Her eyes were blinded by the black ink.

He labeled them: one for your forehead; this one on your nose; all over your body, etc., etc. She picked up each and licked the ink off until there was only space, and the xes slipped down her esophagus. 

When she went to the post office the elderly man at the desk commented on her vibrant eyes. She blushed. “They’re not mine, but thank you.”  Then she set the box on the kitchen table and wrote a poem.

It went like this:

Flowers in the pavement

Flowers in her hair

Flowers from your lover

Floating in the air

Then she took a kitchen knife and forced it through the seam.  She gathered her xes and took them to bed with her.  They made an indent in the mattress, and they warmed her blue tipped fingers. 

She watered the vase of plastic sunflowers in the jar on her night table and turned out the light.

When she closed her eyes, he was there.  

He wore

a long trench coat, grew a long beard, added small penises to every naked girl.  I paint with my prick, Renoir once said.

Collage History of Art, by Henry Darger

—John D’Agata