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Possessions: Randall Jarrell

There were days I loved women so well, I became them. I unrolled my hair in the mirror and cried. If I became myself, walked along the sidelines, and heard the shuffled gravel sounds, everything passed too quickly: the children dreaming, birds circling over the exhaust of travelers. I talked to others under eucalyptus, by…

Vigilance

Running my five miles a day, I frequently encounter some smart-mouthed motorist who will pull alongside me and ask (from the safety of the driver's seat): "What are you in training for?" Deep and regular breathing is the secret; I am rarely out of breath; I never pant or gasp when I respond. "I am…

After the Storm

With my daughter drowsing on the curve of my stomach, her wet stripe socks kick my legs I tell her rainbow stories: I imagine everyone in the world, a big pile heaped lying on top of each other each rubbing and scratching the back of the person above. In this massage coins tumble from pockets,…

Big Sheep Knocks You About

           I’ve shorn over two hunn’ert in a day,            but big sheep knocks you about. I used            to go mad at it, twisting and turning            all night. Couldn’t sleep after a rough            day with the sheep. 1 In town, in the foodshop, the men are making sandwiches, cutting bread, cutting meat,…

Getting It On

(a section from a novel-in-progress, The School Book) Eleanor Franklin went home and told. Eleanor is in the seventh grade, and is a little over thirteen years old. She is precocious (which doesn't mean much around the Tigris School because everyone there is precocious) and somewhat hung up on herself, as only children often are….

Arcane Processional

Rewarded chocolate chip cookies after white ankles at first holy communion. Frankincense and abstinence hand in hand, girl boy girl boy canter to the altar christian doctrine right front wheel. Loose. Catechism question one; who made you? God almighty who at twelve years old can answer that existential phenomenon two; your soul, how must you…

Duck Season

Gracie turned on her side to look at the clock. She could tell by the way the sun struck the window and glowed through the frozen gauze around the bottom of the pane that a hard frost had come at last, that fall was beginning to be what it should be. All night the wind…

Religious Instructions

( from Part One of Chekov Was A Doctor) It began as liberation. Thursday afternoon we were released early from public school for religious instruction. My mother who could scream without raising her voice screamed, "Abe he disappears, ten years old and I can't keep track, Abe the street! Abe the element!" My father said,…

He weeds the clouds

Dad screwed another cigarette into his lips crossed his legs folded his workman’s arms along his weed-stained lap (you can’t speak now not to him he isn’t here just watch watch him climb over the shed the chubby lawn home. watch my daddy smoke fantasy.)