July 1, 2002
My People
Initially, I too appeared between the legs of a woman in considerable discomfort. A rather grisly scene but fairly common among my kind. Those early days, I must admit: a […]
July 1, 2002
The Flat Tire
The moon was lacquered, more than snide, and far from round. The asphalt grew uncivilized and soon unwound, the critters filibustering with clicking sound. Instead of facile negatives, her one […]
July 1, 2002
The Waterfall
From the French. The grouch abstracts himself from what he's reading To contemplate a waterfall which hollows Its way towards the simple depths Of the world. As it passes, it […]
July 1, 2002
Scrupulous Amédée
1. Night Thoughts Clear midnight, calm sea. From his lighthouse on the islet Le Galiton, Amédée Conti sees an Arab crescent among quieter celestial lights. As white, reflections of his […]
July 1, 2002
A Way to Frame the Truth
The Tether by Carl Phillips. New York: Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 2001. 83 pages. $22.00, cloth. In “Recumbent,” a central poem in Carl Phillips’s fifth collection, The Tether, the […]
July 1, 2002
The Insomnia of Murasaki Shikibu
Dew that hidesIn the plumes of autumn grass,Why do you thusRefuse to leaveThe withered fields? —Murasaki Shikibu, b. circa 978 The sheer divestment of a tonsured moon, a tenth-month sky […]
July 1, 2002
Paper
In my childhood home, paper, of any kind, was to be touched only by hand. If you stepped on a book by accident, you were to pick it up and […]
July 1, 2002
Little Drop of Wickedness
Ruckus around tie bird feeder—too greedy mockingbirds mugging a cardinal— and a small wind whirling up from the creek beyond the cul-de-sac, but no other disturbance, no ado, no alarm […]
July 1, 2002
Writing the Real World
I am a writing teacher. I am black. After finishing graduate school, I took a job at a small, private, liberal arts college—as an affirmative action hire, brought in, I […]
July 1, 2002
Falling
Life is either a daring adventure, or it is nothing. —Helen Keller I’m ridin’ high, but I’e got a feelin’ I’m fallin’ fallin’ for nobody else but you. —Fats Wailer […]
July 1, 2002
When I Taught Mary to Eat Avocado
She didn't understand. You couldn't cut straight through with the big knife because of the pit, or heart, or stone. We gave it many names, and when it was revealed, […]
July 1, 2002
Fence of Sticks
As I was building a fence of sticks, I heard the question, weren't there times worse than this for art? Weren't there those who, rather, bristled were they understood, who […]