Of this low stool, the base is a woman naked, stooped, who bears it up with large hands— much larger than her face. For the chief, her hands express service. They gave the carver ten points through which to engineer the stress. Ornamented, they're part of the carver's pleasure in his skill: the fusion of…
Dan had fallen asleep waiting for Nick and this Patty Keith, fallen deep into the lapping rhythm of a muggy Chesapeake evening, and when he heard the slam of car doors the sound came first from a dream. In the hushed amber light of the foyer Dan offered Nick a dazed and disoriented father's hug….
(i) I measure ways out of here. Scan a room, Memorize each exit sign. count the stairs. It's easy to blame the dark, the infinite For what hasn't happened yet. I know all the names Of the highways, the exact wrenchings of elevators, Their clutch: every night I have had to lie a little more…
i am taking in taking in like a lump of a dead baby on the floor mama kicks me i don't feel anything * * * i am taking in taking in i am reading newspapers i am seeing films i am reading poetry i am listening to psychiatrists, friends someone knows the way someone will…
Five-five and one-twelve, thirteen years old, out of an obscure elementary school, a complete unknown. Dale Wheeler walked into the boys' locker room to spin the dial of his combination lock. It was Emerson Junior High, a school with a double gym with a floor the color of whiskey upon which street shoes were never…
I There's a sky with nothing in it— No parachute, as if to save you, Has buckled from the empty ceiling: Your nieces must be taken to the zoo; Their voices are squeaky like vermilion cellophane. The hill to the antelopes you storm, but their shoes Are wrong for such an outing: the straps will…
James Arthur Baldwin 1924-1987 Hungers of the flesh, the timeless terror of our need, the barter of our liberty for lies, these were your watchwords and your witness, the steel of your surrender to our song: True believer, I want to cross over into camp ground. One fiery still November, not in Harlem, nor Paris,…
Reader to Writer: I've read your book and I must say that I find it offensive. Your view of life is not only wrong but it might be harmful to readers more naïve than I. You are not ethical. Writer to Reader: I'm not responsible for you or the welfare of any of my readers….
Now I'm Rembrandt's age when he died. For years I've been tracking his self-portraits in the museums of Europe and America, watching the bright eyes of his twenties gradually sadden into old age. In those last portraits he seems to be saying, “I have seen enough, lost enough, died enough.” But when I look at…
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