Samples From:
God Shattered / Delicate Thefts / The Next Moment / A Certain Light
Still Life Burning / Family of Strangers / Moon Mirror Whiskey Wind
In the Museum of Lost Love The sign reads, We treasure your heartbreak stories. Donate your own memento. All objects displayed anonymously. Here are handwritten letters never sent: my misplaced love, his empty soul, I never gave up, our twisted romance! A bulletin board holds snapshots of what once was a couple, now torn in half, invites you to pin up your own. Here is a snaky ankle bracelet, a stiletto shoe, a wedding dress stuffed in a jar, a print of Millais's drowned Ophelia scrawled across in heavy marker Do I fucking care? From the ceiling hang fur-covered handcuffs, two ceramic hearts fired on the beach at Pensacola, hundreds of origami cranes flying to our last sunrise. In an alcove sits a wedding toaster (I took it. That'll show you!), a shelf with three sand-strewn volumes of Proust, a magnifying glass (she always said she felt small around me). Encased in glass, a well-worn axe: every day after she left I chopped up one piece of her furniture. Docents carry tissues in their pockets. If you taste an old bitterness, take a mint from the copper bowl. The mezzanine is candlelit. You can sit in silence or listen in a sound booth to any song that still splinters your heart.
To Be Emma Bovary Madame Bovary, c’est moi. —Gustave Flaubert Read novels that addle you. Stamp your pretty foot. Regarde soi-même dans le miroir. Dress in a chemisette with three gold buttons between the challis lapels of the bodice. Call your husband a fool, a boor. Pine, yawn, shop, purr. Flirt with the no-account viscount. Mistake lust for love, a lover for a savior, a vulture for a hawk. Go riding with your seducer, feel the lathered withers under your thighs. Lie sated in the forest, feel the leaf-filtered sun light your half-closed eyes. Find his letter bidding you adieu in a basket of delicate apricots. Place your gloved hand on your debtor’s knee. Implore, weep in desperation. Toss your last coin to a blind beggar. Admire the aptness of this gesture. Lament your fate: being agonist in the wrong story. Eat arsenic. Die unlovely in agony.
Manitoulin Morning, July How easy it is to be happy here, where the indigo bunting sings high in a cedar, each song ending in kiss kiss kiss, where goldfinches pick at thistle down, ravens glide and tilt so slowly I feel I am dreaming, a world without strife, no sirens, no engines, no news, nothing even human except me on the porch, you at the dock casting, reeling in. A wasp wafts, carried by the scent of milkweed blossoms, grasshoppers scratch in the barley and brome. The sky a saturated blue, the moon transparent, fleeting.
The Winter We Moved from West Second to North Fourth Snow frothed, kept falling. A six-block move from our neat framed house with its porch swing, elm tree, pansies, to this rough-scrabble duplex, the tired eyes of our neighbors’ darkened windows. My sister raced me down the slick, cracked sidewalk while uncles hoisted beds, dressers, the old piano, aunts put dishes away, our mother clutched a coffee mug. No one said your dad. Steeped in Grimm, I knew words like hunger, abandoned, saved. I half-believed he would come for us, we’d live in the new split-level she dreamed about. Against my heart the locket I stole from a friend. I’d torn out her picture. I liked it empty, a chilly reminder of what gets taken, what remains.
How Dreamy They Are, and Beautiful These teenagers crossing the street. It is June, school is out, and if they have a destination they do not hurry to it. One boy drapes his arm over his girl’s slim neck. She bears the weight lightly. Another boy and a girl swing their hands, a small hammock. A third boy, tossing a ball from one hand to the other, orbits around them. They move as in a bubble, creating their own climate, oblivious to the mimosa’s pink tutus. How can I help but follow the planet of their heavenly bodies, the breeze of their easiness, the music of their murmurings?
This Delicate Theft Fresh from the Colombian School of Seven Chimes (where, for her final, she swiped items from a jacket rigged with tiny bells), she appraises the party of conventioneers, homing in on the harried, the lonely, the dim, the one who’s had a few too many. She gets her mark and like a salsa dancer she presses his wrist, cross-body leads him, steps, swirls into the arc. They’re shoulder to shoulder, her face lit innocence, shadowed eyes downcast. She touches his elbow, speaks low so he’ll lean in to her perfume. Slipping her other hand into his breast pocket, she bypasses his heart, smiles her almost loving smile, then melts into the murmuring. So bittersweet, this parting—
The Rushing Way I Went As if each day were the same river with variations— one day tires, shingles, a doll bobbing past, the next, a heron, hunched and studious on the bank. I’d wake up, put in (yes, I had then delusions of steering), and set in motion this sequence: make coffee, feed the kids, get them to school on time, on to my job, the turnpike commute, yada yada yada. Evenings, upwind, rewind. Where were you? In those short remaining hours, your inevitable flights took away the best parts of us. All so long ago. Now I wash dishes to the tunes of smoky angels and doves calling from the deep down of their soft, gray breasts.
We're Never Ready Here we gather, motley, at the wake. This one hasn’t had her roots touched up. That one’s stuffed into his best suit coat. One has black grease under his fingernails. Another teeters on too-high heels saying Jesus, Jesus— half-prayer, half-curse. We gather brassy, shabby, befuddled, to witness this body— yellow rose on blue lapel, fresh haircut, no necktie— his body without his laugh, his breath, the pain.
Autumnal Equinox Sugar maples blaze at sunset; leaves swoop and skirt the chilling wind like chimney swifts. A boy leaps into leaves, calls to a neighbor’s Irish red, as light falls, a cat’s white shadow, on his grandmother’s lap. Her hands rest there, her grandmother’s hands, the same boniness of wrist and knuckle, dry fingers nearly flammable in the smoky air. She smells ripe pears and feels her body drawn toward the darkness that rolls in earlier each day. Heat and light retreat, and evening covers everything except the boy, whose hair shines silky silver light as he tosses armfuls of color upward, like sparks.
Poison Name your poison, he said. The bottle glinted in his hand. He squinted past me at my sister Lee brushing her heavy hair. She was 14 maybe and secretly smoking. I was practiced at going unnoticed. We each took a Coke and thanked him, her best friend's father--a man, they said, who ate supper in his underwear, who told his wife in front of everyone to shut the hell up. His daughter came downstairs. She called him Daddy. He gave her money, then drove us to the opening of A Hard Day's Night. I didn't like his Jade East-whiskey smell or the way he tried to joke, eyeing my sister in the rearview. In the ladies room, in the three-way mirror, we looked at ourselves from different angles. See how many of me there are! Lee laughed in a shrill way and did a little shimmy. This marked the beginning of the time she became unhappy and with narrowed eyes and a cruel pen I observed her every move.
French I Ou est la bibliotheque? Voila la bibliotheque. Quel temps fait-il? Il fait froid aujourd'jui. I chanted French phrases in bed like prayers, pleased with the way the language shaped my mouth, ma bouche: lips puckered for tu as if playing the flute, then softened like a kiss for je. English words sounded like hammering on wood, but translated en francais they lilted and fell like music or small birds. Fermez la porte means shut the door. petit dejeuner is breakfast, de tout mon coeur, with all my heart. Et alors...Jean-Pierre lifted my hair, murmured into my neck, "You're too good." And for the rest of that year I didn't know where the library was or whether the temperature was froid ou chaud. As the class recited je vais, tu vas, il va..., I could see myself in a silk slip on a picnic, tipsy with champagne, kissing, we'd be kissing the way the French do. What I longed for then was beyond language as I knew it, it was pure image, or impure, mon Dieu! and my future? My future was present, present perfect.
The Roy Rogers Show Dale was casual with a spatula, but when there was trouble she'd tear off her apron and ride flat out. She'd get down in the dirt and fight the bad woman fair. She and Roy sipped coffee afterwards, waving away the sheriff's thanks. At the end they sang Happy trails to you until we meet again, sang it so sad, but smiling, as if they knew you were trapped in black and white with your parents who ate in gritty silence and returned to their separate rooms. They looked past your bitten nails, didn't mind that you couldn't finish a sentence, understood why you pinched your brother so hard. They looked deep into you and saw that white coal, the small glow of you you knew was good. They'd come back every Saturday so you had to keep believing in their faces, honest as the desert sky; you'd have to remember how their voices singing braided together like good, strong rope.
Mina Speaks Others' small dramas surround me like so much damp air. As mail mistress I'd read between lines, but I kept my observations to myself. No one knew about my engagement until my mother broke it off. She made me take the train home, my heart beating dull, dull, as the train clattered past the stiff, somber rows of fall corn. I never saw him again, Stephen, who had lovely manners and played the violin. I had to quit my job to tend Mother. I bore that woman in silence fifty-three years, listened to her complain of arthritis, rubbed her shoulders when she nagged me. I developed a technique, a way of absenting myself, while keeping to the routines of Mother's tea at ten, lunch at noon, sewing at three, and so on. When she died I didn't celebrate. Or cry. The house so quiet I heard the icebox click on. Outside the cicadas shimmied like taffeta. That night I went to bed as usual. The man in the curtains was there in my room. When he speaks he sounds just like Father--that tall and shadowy. What sin this time? I wondered. I considered Mary: she stayed somehow virginal and forgave as much as Jesus. More--Mary had to forgive her son for turning away from her, for having choices, for thinking a pallet in the sand would do for a home. Jesus knew a mother's love is tough and gnarled, ingrown and unyielding like old grapevines. That long July night I told the spirit in the curtains, I am giving you up and my rosaries. And you must take Mary, too.
Dialogue Concerning a Blue Convertible What night? The night the moon fell I don't know what Blue convertible You must have dreamt it You wore a white scarf Well I might have It trailed behind you Years ago that Whose voice was it You would have been just Who was that man Ma I wasn't even Peepers singing a cold pond My early twenties Something sank there But you were sleeping Air so sullen Do you remember A field of larkspur You couldn't have been more Where was Daddy than three years old then Who was that man He was somebody Pulled dimes from my hair I met him somewhere I wasn't laughing A smooth dancer He undid your It must have been when He ignored me, The man could whistle He undid your like Mel Torme any tune I wasn't sleeping That was long ago Why did you bring me I repented You looked so different I smoked Camels Deep red lipstick "Mack the Knife" kept The scarf fluttered Repented all that around your shoulders Why stir up old Did you tell Daddy What good does it do You forgot me You want to punish You repented Yes yes long ago You turned into I couldn't help it The clouds thinned and Some things are better floated up like left alone scarves let loose So why mention in high wind So why ask me I had to remember You're not going I can't help it to write about me Yes I'm going to Well try to show some The whippoorwill kept There are the fine points Don't give me whitened All I mean is I see it all now a good writer I could forgive you always shows her You were gorgeous characters and I thought then a bit of sympathy almost free
No Jazz in the Cornfields Mama's brother couldn't stand it that the Germans who laid out this land liked clear views and direct routes. He despaired that the trunk room revealed no mysteries; not a drop of gypsy blood could be traced. At age seventeen he headed for the black Atlantic, where egrets cry like saxophones, sand resettles in silence, and the ocean flows in arpeggiated chords. Music is transmutation, man, he wrote. Grandma said he'd always been an odd bird. He came home between love affairs, looking, Mama said, like a refugee, desperate and thin. Into how many lives of how many women did he drift? He brought back espresso, croissants, cognac, records by Paul and Carlay Bley. He even wore a black beret! He laughed at my engagement to Jimmy Schumann, said he thought I had more sense than that. The night before he left the sky swarmed violet, violent; he watched me hurry in the cows before it hailed. The sky enacts the only drama here, he said. He took the 8:12 from Chicago to Manhattan, whistled, I remember, as he packed his bags.
Love and Tornadoes By the time I meet up with Michael Lee I've read Madame Bovary three times, know passion is the only way to leave behind the endless rows of corn, monotonous as gossips. Mike smokes Camels in a sullen Brando style. He's heading for Chicago as soon as his mother dies; his Mustang's tuned, running smooth. The wind rushes at us, lifting dust on Angus Lane; lightning shocks the chartreuse sky. Still the cicadas sustain their drone. Mike says he likes the smell of wet-hay nights, my hair, this dizzying whiskey that we sip. Clouds churn in the distance; the corn rustles its silks. Mike rustles mine, and in our unbridled frenzy I am as sultry and guilty as Emma Bovary. We drive back the long way, languid and liquorish; the air has stilled itself to a warning calm. As we lean against each other in my parents' open porch, the winds catch up to us! The elm loses its last good branch and stands now armless and sick as justice. A window bangs above our heads; the screen door chatters. Now here comes my father, in all his stentorian glory, to flood our clouded souls with his heavy, searching light.
Today my Body is Mine As it was at age thirteen so lean I was almost airborne running wheat stalks chafed my legs crows scattered up from the chaff running that moment I now call zen was then just me blending into wheat into wind the ragged wing of crow
A Marriage In his stories he was always the hero; she the damsel in hers. This is how families are born. And endure. The hard d's of Dad with its short a so brassy, the soft yum of Mom, her scent of cinnamon. He said buckshot, slipknot, topnotch, crackpot. Steam, gleam, beam, redeem the words she prayed. Mow the lawn floating swan cut your nails wedding veil scrub that makeup off buttercup His crewcut, her creamy hands, his steely eyes; her mind drifting away to some airy kind of heaven where she glided beside Jesus and above them sang thrushes, where she was no one's wife or mother, where she was prized (o rosary, poetry, reverie!) for her pure soul self.
To a Barbie She dresses you in evening gowns, pushes shoes onto your achingly arched feet, bends you at the waist, and forces you into Ken's car, Ken's boat, Ken always whisking you away. She moves your arms: wave hello; better wear your windbreaker. How tiring to have a pink smile painted on over a smear of white teeth, your eyes, the blue of a chlorine pool, always open. Would you be happier alone in the kitchen with your miniature stove and tiny, unbreakable cups? Mmm, this coffee sure tastes good, she says for you, then strips you again, rakes the comb through your coarse, bleached hair, then drops you in hot sand under a killer sun; grit gets in your cracks while she eats an ice cream cone. Naked, you wait--pert, expectant-- fated never to be loved for yourself, but only as the plaything of this moody little girl now coming at you with scissors in her hand.
Destiny and Johnny She was a reader of fashion magazines. He was a leader of reckless young men. Impossible her name should be Destiny. He'd be called Johnny, forever. Her mother said, marry, him, why not, a wedding, a home, sure, that's life. Her father said neither one thing nor another. She draped herself in layers of scarves, followed the make-up tips of stars. The mirror, her friend, winked: one day you could be one of them. Johnny wanted only her body, which she gave as a blessing, saving her true self for the future, which stretched beyond this hick state of corn and beans, corn and beans and the smell of shit and terror and rage that blew in from the hog farms south of town. To board a bus and head--where? All she needed was a godmother who'd say, First thing, kid, go, and go now; second, know it will be hard; third, I have a friend in the city who can help you.