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Not Modern

The air conditioner was broken again. Cynthia unscrewed one side from the window and lost interest in fixing it. Now the celery was chopped and the lettuce, cored and cleaned, lay draining in a puddle of water on the sink. Anna hadn't moved her things out yet so Cynthia could still use the good knives….

Reading Jane Austen at 3 A.M.

“Elizabeth passed the chief of the night in her sister's room.” He rode a dark horse through the land of nightmares, his hair pulled back so tight his eye's couldn't close. Elizabeth feared for her sister Jane who was kind to strangers. The land of sisters neighbors the land of English country houses. A letter…

Forgotten Music

Here, the storm-darkened house: Candles lit against the gloom. We're not afraid of the dark really; Just hitting furniture moving About. The old music stand Rears lyric arms against the sky. (A room needs some height) No one plays any more But we found a lovely folio Psalter — Portobello, I think. Cantate Domino, Canticum…

The Eighth Day

I I was always interested in myself, but I never thought I went back so far. Joan and I talked about birth almost as soon as we met. I told her I believed in the importance of early experience. "What do you mean by early," she asked, "before puberty, before loss of innocence?" "Before age…

Flamingos

You could see mountains and gardens in the name almost: Cuernavaca. But not our garden, hill-hidden, notched in a valley higher than the city. It was ours after a long dinner only when we discovered the ancient stability of three: triangle and tripod. I'd never seen so many waiters, perched in nooks and corners like…

Hog-Killing Weather

There are those images that lie around at the back of your mind, not demanding much attention and rarely getting any, sort of fossilized, as you might say. Then one morning, a bitter November morning, something catches the edge of your eye, still smoky with sleep, and you sit up in bed and squint into…

Mother

A painted cloth for the kitchen wall, Bought honeymoon time in the Quarter. He'd courted with tales of how it'd be; Ended with “N'Orlens no place for my wife.” Ship sank seven years to the week And he was gone. Cairo not a bad Place for a woman without a man. We, she and us,…

Blue Stone

Old man Trainer, they say, has finally gone around the bend. As he rides his Italian ten-speed bicycle down the long slope of curving asphalt roadway toward Red Branch, the farm women watch from their orchards, from screened veranda porches, and they say it: he's crazy. They shake their heads sadly. He's loopy, they say….

Swan Song

In the last days of his life, Schubert was frequently delirious, during which time he sang continuously. Fischer-Dieskau, Schubert's Songs The text caught in his blood. Conceived in one quick sure burst, it bloomed like a flower no one-understood. This music was too pure for the piano. Half-dazed friends hearing it ascend like a thin…