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Sleep
At My Bedroom Window
The night sky outside my window is so watery I want to backstroke into it, sink beneath its silver-flecked surface. I am sad and it is beautiful; in this, we make a good marriage. I imagine my parents up there now. Sometimes I miss them so much I’d do anything to have them back. I keep a large color photo of them on my bureau so they can watch me dress and undress every day. I no longer care if my father sees me naked.
November 1999This Prison Where I Live
When the door has been slammed behind him for the first time, the prisoner stands in the middle of the cell and looks round. I fancy that everyone must behave in more or less the same way.
October 1996Selected Stories
I went to a theater to see a play. In the middle of the second act, there was a pause. The actors seemed to be waiting for something. A tall man walked up to me and whispered, “You’re in the play.”
July 1996Fear Kills
I think I tried to describe what I actually feared. The crushing weight of eternal time. The dizzying space of infinity. I remember he laughed a bit as I brought these things up — so big a subject for such a little kid.
March 1996Fathering The Night
Carrying the baby horizontally across my chest like a football usually calms him, and often puts him to sleep. But not tonight. He’s still crying, cycling through his whole repertoire: the screechy fear cry; the lower, throaty demand cry; the pitiable gasping interspersed with slobbery whimpers.
February 1995
