Literature overtakes history, for literature gives you more than one life. It expands experience and opens new opportunities to readers.
Dear Juliet,
Don’t worry about Gilly—you did not embarrass S&S; I’m only sorry that the tea wasn’t hotter and you didn’t aim lower. The Press is hounding me for a statement regarding Gilly’s latest muckraking, and I am going to give them one. Don’t worry; it’s going to be about Journalism in these degenerate times—not about you or Rob Dartry.
I just spoke to Susan about going on to Scotland … Read the rest
Mr. Sidney Stark, Publisher
Stephens & Stark Ltd.
21 St. James’s Place
London S.W.1
England
Dear Sidney,
Susan Scott is a wonder. We sold over forty copies of the book, which was very pleasant, but much more thrilling from my standpoint was the food. Susan managed to procure ration coupons for icing sugar and real eggs for the meringue. If all her literary luncheons are going to … Read the rest
Pedestrian Bystander
Goose bumps. Forgotten jacket. It’s fall.
Side streets are wet off Sunset.
Petrichor adorns as bold steps sound
of puddles found. Throbbing city screams
along. Alone, I’m lost in thought
again, swallowed up by Los Angeles.
Godforsaken sidewalks. Goddamned crosswalks! Los Angeles
wayfarers calm traffic. Until green falls
on idling minds, then progressive thought
drives forward once again. Hidden sunset,
headlights on. On the gas! Screams
at fellow … Read the rest
Little Ones Cry
They have worn out
their limbs from whimpering,
folding their arms with force
and precision, thwarting parental
authority in between
stampeding feet.
Little ones
let their lips quiver
like frozen eskimos.
The howls soar up and echo
off empty juice boxes.
When little ones cry, they create
cracks in the Earth’s surface.
They beat tiny fists cleverly against
table tops and couches
remembering this
is how they … Read the rest
Sunday Catholic School
He was reading the bible and eating a Milky Way, with every bite he took I blushed. His lips a slight delicate pink. Inside me butterflies appeared and disappeared, an imagined prism, a blossoming blue flower expanding, drizzling from my pores. His hands were smooth, his fingers a bit forceful, his smile reassuring me that everything was going to be okay. He gave me something to drink … Read the rest
I was always a dutiful woman. Nobody could tell me that I didn’t fulfill my responsibilities as a daughter, a wife, a caretaker. My mother said that I knew my place as a girl. “When Xiao Lan was a baby,” she’d say, looking at all of the neighborhood aunties who gathered at our courtyard to crack watermelon seeds and drink sweet date tea, “She never cried. She was a twin, … Read the rest
7 Days
On the first day of your death,
I will not cry, or look to the door, expecting you to enter.
I will take a key and lock my memory tight.
On the second day of your death,
I will walk weakly to the kitchen and eat alone.
I will swallow whole, without the strength to chew, and the food will cut my throat.
On the third day of … Read the rest
Icarus
standing in the kitchen
in your indiana jones hat,
you roll out the last tortilla
(put cheese in the middle and don’t forget the oil of life
— and lots of it)
and talk to the dog.
max whines from the floor, rearranging tirelessly every time his
pawpads slip on the dirty white tiles. you always ask me if i really think
he has thoughts. i know what i … Read the rest
Hyperion Must Have Settled Here
Sitting on a levee, watching boats
and boats, boats enough to make it seem
that the water is riding boats,
I’m hating myself for
having called this home.
To remember how every day, waking to a great, bright sail
bound across my window, then to open
a door to see boats. They haunt me: parked
on all the lawns, in backyards and driveways,
parking lots, … Read the rest
Plant Your Feet
I’ve got the Seven Sisters in my eye, gleaming,
And a secret in every word, steaming, boiling, evaporating.
Now and then I water my roots and I drink, drink, drink,
Hydrated and in love.
When we stay here and waste thoughts on wilted ferns, I
become confused,
And dizzy, gyrated.
What isn’t wasted in this twisted world?
Misty rivers, grandfather trees and beds of saturated moss?
The … Read the rest