Cecily's parents are divorcing, and perhaps for revenge, perhaps to distract, perhaps to build self-esteem, her mother Kate has taken to frenetic self-improvement. Shopping trips, perms and cuts, nail wraps, aerobic exercises, massages. Now she is going to Calistoga to the mud baths. Cecily finds the idea of mud baths bizarre, yet, curious and amused…
THE MARRIAGE BONE Once broken it tends to give under pressure. Though the knit serves, the gait will always be slightly protective, the limb will remember a fault line, the snap of its failing. It may bear your weight cunningly down the avenues of custom so that no one else notices. Left/right, left/right—walk you will…
August first: it was a year ago we drove down from St.-Guilhem-le-Désert to open up the house in St. Guiraud rented unseen. I'd stay; you'd go; that's where our paths diverged. I'd settle down to work, you'd start the next month of your Wänderjahr. I turned the iron key in the rusted lock (it came,…
1. The Cambridge Afternoon Was Gray When you were born, the nurse's aide Wore a gray uniform, and the Evelyn Nursing Home Was full of sisters of mercy starched To a religious ecstasy Of tidiness. They brought you, struggling feebly Inside your cotton blanket, only your eyes Were looking as if you already knew What…
I caught it and screamed for water. Someone carried a pail, I plunged my hands in. The water boiled. I wore violet gloves beaded with glass. Now what do I do with this water. How can I pick the pail up, where should I set it. How to turn doorknobs and enter rooms and not…
for CHW (1916-1979) 1. The Mountain A meadow in Vermont, on Bread Loaf Mountain. I watched you walk with a dancer's quick walk along the path on the edge of the meadow. Your shoulders were bent like a scholar's but your legs were the legs of a dancer. Your jacket, thick for a hot summer…
Your name is Diana Toy. And all you may have for breakfast is rice gruel. You can't spit it back into the cauldron for it would be unfilial. You can't ask for yam gruel for there is none. You can't hide it in the corner for it would surely be found, and then you would…
I. The landlord's daughter speaks of it in Portuguese as if she were eating a flower. On the corner, her slender arms crossed like the words of caution whispered between sisters, she watches cars slide by with an intelligent eye, studies their shapes as abstracts of possible entanglements. Only her father's house has a garden,…
Certain habits can seem miraculous in the thoughts of the dispossessed: to have chosen your own clothing from stores and then your closet, to have shaven yet again in the mist dulling your bathroom mirror— such are the dreams of the homeless. . . I rarely consider my fingers or tongue until slicing or slamming…
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