There is a crooked keloid scar on the side of Tally's golden face that says, “I don't give a damn.” Around his neck he wears the Star of David—no special significance. His left arm from shoulder down is tattooed marine-blue and between me and you, Tally ain't all there. But why should he care? Down…
War chariots thunder, horses neigh, the barbarians are coming. What are we waiting for, young nubile women pointing at the wall, the barbarians are coming. They have heard about a weakened link in the wall. So, the barbarians have ears among us. So deceive yourself with illusions: you are only one woman, holding one broken…
It is Thursday, raining You ask me a question I try to answer quickly definitively or thought- fully for truly I do not know I go off to think—but nothing answers— so hard so long I lose sight And you who asked are no longer there Or you are—though not as the person who…
The blue light of the teevee glowed on our blue faces. Ray Charles sang of Georgia on his mind. “His mind? That nigger doesn't have a mind!” Grandmomma said. She threw her tatting down on her lap, hawked once, dipped snuff, and glowered at the teevee set. “Damn niggers taking over teevee. You can't watch…
They were living in Providence again after spending the summer in Wildwood, New Jersey. In Wildwood, Stephen worked on a fishing boat, a deep-sea charter named The Pied Piper. It was a bad name for a fishing boat since it made people think of rats in the water. Families and businesses hired the boat for…
Easter Sunday. Matthäus Passion spins. (Have been revising “A Valediction,” avoiding writing this.) Can't seem to get past the first disc's aria, Buß und Reu. Yesterday we dyed eggs (it was my first time). We all laughed while I reddened, blowing; out oozed the mess. Then you were too drained for St. Mary's smoky Mass….
Huge drowsy yellow jackets rose out of the sick-sweet stink of fruit— a tub of scuppernongs wedged in between me and my uncle. He said, “Hold that tub steady. Don't let her tip.” He drove and boasted of his new air pump and how only fools would pay full retail price. And when the wasps…
Her phone not ringing his hand not tightening on hers not his wiry beard scratching her cheek or his pocked look of having looked at her and not looked again Not his toothbrush on a neat wood shelf far from the sink, the hallway stacked with papers, hung with paintings of nudes without features, shoulders…
Peter died in a paper tiara cut from a book of princess paper dolls; he loved royalty, sashes and jewels. I don't know, he said, when he woke in the hospice, I was watching the Bette Davis film festival on Channel 57 and then— At the wake, the tension broke when someone guessed the casket…
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