Like a dream, which when one becomes conscious of it becomes a confusion, so her name slipped between the vacancies. As little more than a child I hurried among a phalanx of rowdy boys across a dance floor— such a clattering of black shoes. Before us sat a row of girls in pastel dresses waiting….
“That was in another life,” we say. Everyone knows what that means— another love, in another country. “In another life, when I drank chartreuse, densely herbal, fresh green on my tongue, the light filtering through new rainwater fell on a face, beside a café window. . . .” I hear about another’s other life which…
Amor, ch’a nullo amato amar perdona, mi prese del constui piacer sì forte, che, come vedi, ancor non m’abbandona. Amor condusse noi ad una morte. —Dante Is this hell, where neighbors will try to burn us out? To clear the woods one doused a cat in gasoline And let her run afire through…
It’s not a fancy restaurant, nor is it a dump and it’s packed this Saturday night when suddenly a man leaps onto his tabletop, whips out his prick and begins sawing at it with a butter knife. I can’t stand it anymore! he shouts. The waiters grab him before he draws blood and hustle him…
She reclines, more or less. Try that posture, it’s hardly languor. Her right arm sharp angles. With her left she conceals her ambush. Shoes but not stockings, how sinister. The flower behind her ear is naturally not real, of a piece with the sofa’s drapery. The windows (if any) are shut. This is indoor sin….
The dreadlocks had all fallen off from chemotherapy, and so when Marley died in Switzerland they flew the body in the hold to Kingston, where he would lie in state, or in the anti-state he’d written all those hymns for, his face ironed into repose and sweet, or bland if sweet couldn’t be done. “Baldheads”…
Everything is so dark under the baby, the table floats legless, a rectangle of light. Around it the angels are bending their doctoral faces, the baby unswaddled, undisturbed. But can you see them? See the kleigs bearing down on the infant, throwing up a stark light on the angels’ faces,…
Tamales plain-steamed then whitened like a wedding dress with cream and queso. A beautiful simple food. And not enough. We want more. We are cravers of storms and choques on the highway. We never mind waiting in the long stopped lines if at the end there can be some blood. Forget our lovers. We want…
Pomp churned through midtown like a combine, razing a path to the Waldorf-Astoria. At 34th and 10th a black man drizzled a wan froth of soap and dirt on my windshield and paused for me to pay to get it squeegeed off. He just wanted, he said, to make an honest living. I gave a…
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