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Self Lullaby

I am small and don't want much at all. I live in a striped quilt And curl up near the door. Grandpa tripped On me and broke his jaw. I drop My doll's head in the cake. I always wear pink. I smile in school and dunk My own curls in the ink. I share…

The Floral Apron

The woman wore a floral apron around her neck, that woman from my mother's village with a sharp cleaver in her hand. She said, “What shall we cook tonight? Perhaps these six tiny squids lined up so perfectly on the block?” She wiped her hand on her apron, pierced the blade into the first. There…

In My Best Recurrent Dream

Haphazardly a blizzard collects over our window as if the moon, weaving between clouds, were breathing it. In the same window seat, stitched with lilies, each minute prickly, in which she read me forty-five years back her favorite, “Hansel and Gretel,” I am reading to my sister the same tale tonight. She is fifty-eight, I…

The Birth of Tally’s Blues

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…

The Barbarians Are Coming

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…

Black Stones I, II, III

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…

Teevee With Grandmomma

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…

The Cheaters’ Club

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…

Matthew’s Passion

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….