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the rabbits

it didn’t take long for papa to find his place. he sat down on the coffee table and pulled out his matches. the first one lit easily so he put it on the floor between his feet and the flame sandwich ate him up. mama came in screaming and running about like my rabbits in…

Static Discharge

The things it never does any good to protest. With our only son, Billy Frank, Jr., in a Mexican jail for having been intercepted with something illegal strapped to his leg. With daughter Mary Jo making daily visits to the shot-doctor for “vitamins,” leaving her probably autistic child in a playpen fitted with baubles and…

Discovery Section Introduction

The following pages constitute a discovery section in that the work is by writers who have not previously had a national appearance. To obtain their work I canvassed such teachers and writers as George Starbuck, Denise Levertov, Kenneth Rexroth, and Tim O'Brien, and drew from my own students at Emerson College. We hope to repeat…

The Garden Wall

The air at the bottom of the garden was damp, but when Cecilia Lofton opened the gate, a gust of the chergui, loaded with needles of hot sand, struck her in the face. Raising her hand defensively, she squinted down the dusty road that meandered among scrubby palms and shacks of tin and cardboard until…

Beating a Fast Tattoo

“. . . it is not War which is tearing up the world, it is Conscience . . .”      —in The Fixer “The honors of this world, what are they but puff, and emptiness, and peril of falling?”      —St. Augustine `How does it feel when you fall?‘ Asked plainly enough at the dinner table Mother…

Gemcrack

She is sitting in the car and I do my number. Looking down the sight I see an auriole fly to the right and left, all around in haloed flutters. Then it wavers like underwater noons, I have to split, my Uncle doesn’t wait. He says be back, be quick, be reverant. We pray for…

To the Savage Child

It must be hard to be a girl, Kamala. There are stories how you were stolen from the field, a baby, your mother hoeing far away as a she-wolf passed, took pity, lifted you by the scruff home to the den, raised you as the slow cub in her litter. A long time until you…