Out back of the motel, a man and a boy feed alligators in the dark. I can see them past the curtains. Past the paisley curtains and through the cracked and dirty pane of glass, I see them, like shadows, see them and the slow, casting motions they make. I see things leave their hands,…
Did you ever see stars? asked my father with a cackle. He was not speaking of the heavens, but the white flash in his head when a fist burst between his eyes. In Brooklyn, this would cause men and boys to slap the table with glee; this might be the only heavenly light we’d ever…
When I hit thirteen, the noun between my legs turning into a verb, my father sat me down and said: one day you will have a wife of your own. A man will come—a helpful neighbor knocking while you’re at work perhaps, or a garlicky colleague at an office party, or a lifeguard on a…
Describing her, I say, she’s a Modigliani face-wise but when she walks in her custom-size narrow boots she minces, or half-dances like a pony, the sort of pony who is dear and a little silly and wears a hat with a ribbon. A little of this and a little of that—lacking a territorial integrity, she…
When I woke, makeup-smeared and sallow, everyone was gone. Greasepaint smooth in the new line of my cheek and corset-bruises on my hips, first warm day of the year. A false eyelash settled like a moth on my collarbone. They loved me on the high wire last night in my spangled tights all done up…
Is poetry ruining my life, I wonder, upstairs in a house with more windows than walls where I am trying to write or read it. Downstairs “Lady in the Dark,” complete with dialogue, too loud, and the purr of my husband’s snore. I feel a fume coming on, kindling for an inferior rage that will…
The Look2 essay series, which replaces our print book reviews, takes a closer look at the careers of accomplished authors who have yet to receive the full appreciation that their work deserves. Reviews of new books can still be found on our blog at http://pshares.org/ If literature were politics, Jaimy Gordon would be the…
Roy and Jimmy Boyle were shooting pool on a rainy Saturday afternoon in Lucky’s El Paso when Mooney Yost, a Lucky’s regular, came in and sat down on a bench near the boys’ table. Yost was about fifty years old, a fin and a sawbuck hustler who was always kind to Roy and his friends….
Today I bow to the power of negative space, the beauty of what’s missing—the hard work of yard work made harder without you, while the stiff kiss of acorns puckers the ground. I am a fool. Even as the red impatiens wither and brown, they are still lovely. I feed the gaping mouths of lawn…
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