The Brooklyn Rail

Cole hit me like a ton of bricks in 2001. • We met in April, both of us in Oxford to participate in Carla Harryman’s Performing Objects Stationed in Platform on the Sub (Urban) World (Cole was living not too far away, in Seville, at the time). The script allowed for (and encouraged) improvisation; at one point, we were playing cards onstage and the subject of Allen Ginsberg’s death came up. “Must be getting on for five years now,” I remarked, to which Cole replied, “Yeah, we should get a new deck.” • In London, in June, we went to hear the Raincoats as part of Robert Wyatt’s Meltdown on the South Bank (Robert was bopping about in his wheelchair). • Cole’s father, Jack, came to visit from San Diego, and we took him to a lock-in at the Auld Triangle in Finsbury Park. When the Irish musicians found out he was a therapist they each bought him a pint and waited patiently for a consultation (“Jack, I have this recurring dream where I’m holding a red balloon—what does it mean?”). • In October, during an enthusiastic night with Tom Raworth in Annandale-on-Hudson, Tom took some of his collages out of his suitcase and Cole beamed, “They’re just like your poems!” • You didn’t have to see Cole’s extensive wardrobe of vintage dresses to know she was an old soul (Andalusia suited her). • In 2002 we found a former Hells Angel who had swapped his Harley for Jesus, and were quickly married on the beach in Newport, Rhode Island, with Shiba Nemat-Nasser as maid of honor and Brian Kim Stefans as best man. • Our divorce was amicable, although Cole would occasionally make me sweat as we waited for my green card to arrive (“Piss me off and you’ll be back in London before you know it!”). • Vodka at sunset on the beach at Jacob Riis Park with Cole and Rachel Szekely. Cole’s grip on life made me think of the Cockettes (Reggie: “Just give me a torn dress, a hit of acid, and let’s hit the beach!”). • In summer 2002, during lunch with John Ashbery, Larry Fagin, and others at Cafe Orlin in the East Village, Cole advanced the theory that one of the vegetables in her salad was good for the lungs because it resembled a lung. John immediately asked for more cucumber. • She was a proper scholar, not someone who played at it while also writing poetry because both are, apparently, easy to do. • “Jus’ paintin’ ma figurines…” • Asthma and tobacco. • After dinner at Bill and Beverly Corbett’s on Columbus Square (winter 2002), Bill and I stepped out to walk the dogs. “She’s a pistol,” he said. She was.