Of (Mark) and (Anne)

I had a book binge last week, which included a second-hand copy of 'Winter Trees' by Sylvia Plath. It was SUCH an unnecessary purchase, seeing as I already own her complete works in a single volume, but there's something about a novel-length collection of poems that I find endlessly daunting. Not to mention the way it seems to obliterate the individuality of each separate collection. So it looks like I'll be making up the complete works a second time.

It's a nice-looking book. I was pretty happy. What I didn't notice in the shop was the inscription. It's written on the first page, in loopy blue biro.

(Anne) to the most adored, loved, mentally bejewelled person this side of anywhere - with lots of frog-freckled love, not to mention hugs, kisses, smooches, cuddles, the odd rummage and so forth - Mark xxxx 9/11/81

The romantic in me wants to believe they had some star-spangled giddy love affair culminating in the untimely death of Anne (Mark) and the dispersion of all her worldly goods (given her by Mark) to the winds by her (his) grief-stricken lover. The cynic in me suspects they had a star-spangled giddy love affair culminating with graduation and disillusionment with the real world, followed by a period of cold unnecessary bickering and painful drift. Then they would've parted ways; Anne probably found some lover in the corporate sector, got engaged, and came across this slim blue volume while cleaning out all her old junk in preparation for moving into her fiancee's sleek inner-city digs. Preferring to disavow her romantic/literary/bohemian past, she chucked it on the 'out' pile along with some Ginsberg, Kafka, Beauvoir et al. Not usually one for sentiment, she couldn't quite bring herself to throw them out; instead she bundled them up and left them outside a second-hand bookshop in the dead of night. She drove off slightly flustered and stopped for takeout on the way home.