Poetry
Winter 1994
Normal
Assent, and you are the sane . . . Emily Dickinson First classes, the sun is out, the darlings Troop in, my colleagues Tell me I look normal. I am […]
Poetry
Winter 1994
The Gurney
from THE MASTECTOMY POEMS What’s this long corridor above the street What are these ceiling tiles Why in my horizontal state Am I so like an undemanding child After they […]
Poetry
Winter 1994
Riddle: Post-op
A-tisket a-tasket I’m out of my casket Into my hospital room With a view of Riverside DriveWhere the snow is a feathery shawl My children plump as chestnuts by the […]
Poetry
Winter 1994
December Thirty-First
I say this year no different From any other, so we party, the poets And physicists arrive bearing Cheeses, chile, sesame noodles, Meats, mints, whatever– Champagne–Filling up the sideboard, Filling […]
Poetry
Winter 1994
The River
Sluiced with the city’s detritus To the glum hands of the sea, Afraid of dark, afraid of cold, She turns and calls for me. When other floating fragments (Every one […]
Poetry
Winter 1994
Healing
Brilliant–A day that is less than zero Icicles fat as legs of deer Hang in a row from the porch roof A hand without a mitten Grabs and breaks one […]
Poetry
Winter 1994
Years of Girlhood (For My Students)
All the years of girlhood we wait for them, Impatient to catch up, to have power Inside our sweaters, to replace our mothers. O full identity, O shape, we figure, […]
Poetry
Winter 1994
Epilogue: Nevertheless
The bookbag on my back, I’m out the door, Winter turns to spring The way it does, and I buy dresses. A year later, it gets to where When they […]
Nonfiction
Summer 1992
The Interpretation of Dreams
And they said one to another, Behold, this dreamer cometh. Come now therefore, and let us slay him, and cast him into some pit, and we will say, Some evil […]
Nonfiction
Summer 1991
Esther, or the World Turned Upside Down
for Richard Howard They tell the story of Esther to children. It’s a folktale. Horror wrapped up as entertainment, threat of annihilation averted. Once a year we imagine the victory […]
Fiction
Spring 1990
The Wisdom of Solomon
It is their first meeting, the first day. They have bathed in cream and been rubbed with myrrh. They have been clothed in bright embroidered silk, sleek fur, sheer wool, […]