The phonograph comes on stitched with insect life, breathing the slurred breath of the grasses. I hear the cooling earth send off the random clicks of its shut-down engine as firefly embers tick upwards through the trees and loose in the drowned world of the grass: a rattle, a scuffle, the little ball bearing in…
His son wore a moustache. Over and between tan faces and the backs of heads with hair cut high and short, and green-uniformed shoulders and chest and backs, Harry saw him standing with two other second lieutenants at the bar. His black moustache was thick. Only one woman was at happy hour, a blonde captain:…
They’re determined to have fun. The boy’s 14 today. He’s chosen this trip North to where they lived a life before him. There’s the attic in the gray Victorian where pigeons nested until the cooing wasn’t cute. Where the husband put his fist — why? — through the wall. The owners’ fights rose through forced-air…
* Characters MR. BERNARD SETTLE, owner of B&D Market MR. EUSTIS CHASTAIN, owner of Tidal Realty Co. MRS. CAROLINE BYERS MRS. GLORIANNA LIMEHOUSE NORMAN, aged 52, owner of a pick-up truck PAUL, a potter and a dog owner, balding with long hair MAD JOHN, a dog owner, in his thirties MRS. FAYE PETTY, librarian BEMISS,…
MASTHEAD Directors DeWitt Henry Peter O'Malley Coordinating Editor for This Issue DeWitt Henry Managing Editor Joyce Peseroff CONTRIBUTORS J. Bernlef, one of Holland's most prolific writers, has had 50 books published since 1960, and besides novels, short stories and poems, writes music as well. His latest novel is Ijsbergen (Icebergs). T. Alan Broughton is a…
Don’t move I say to your body but it has no plans, not even your lips when I hope Are you all right? Day comes to attention as you sprawl on the landing making your private bargain with publicity and chance while I, no medic or nurse and ignorant of your name stroke your arm…
It’s visitor’s day At the end of the night As a mirror keeps hurrying Another wedding through the moon The survivors looking back with satin or top hats . . . Scraps of the calendar Fill the dull air The altar of the hospital Dim as lamps in wartime It’s December again The year gods…
Years ago, in a plane over California, I suddenly thought I understood Keats’ sonnet “When I have fears that I may cease to be . . .” I felt changed by the experience, both thrilled and calmed. At the time I worked as a “gofer” for a small film company. IBM was flying us around…
They appeared on the beach as I walked by, the bodies, sprawling on towels immodestly, impervious to stares by what integrity they owned which let them abandon their winter clothes. As they lay in the street, I watched them and followed a man’s search for his wife: a familiar shape and texture, perfume rising from…
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