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Girlie slid out like a hot buttered noodle on that Indian-summer night in October — her father’s birthday, in fact.
November 2000Winning And Losing
It’s been almost a year and a half since my book of poems was accepted for publication by a small press. This spring, I got a call informing me that the book would come out in the summer. Now, with only a few days of summer remaining, I am getting discouraged. Impulsively, I pick up the phone to call the publisher for news of my book. If I thought about it for very long, I wouldn’t call. I fear that maybe he has lost interest in the book or changed his mind.
May 2000Leaving The West
The first time I hear the voice is in the fall, when the larch trees have just begun to change color. I’m driving out of Washington’s Blue Mountains along Cloverland Road just above the Snake River. Cloverland is a series of hair-pin turns and S curves bordered by a sheer drop into a canyon full of snakes, sage, and yellow star thistle.
February 2000At 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 1999The Artist’s Mother
I’ve longed for someone since I can remember, and not a night goes by when I don’t reach for her. It’s been hell having something between my legs, but as my mother would say, we must make the best of what we have and not complain of what we don’t.
November 1999To Kill A Deer
Later, everyone would agree it was the least likely time to encounter a deer. The two young guys in baseball caps who stopped to help us on the freeway said it. So did the highway patrolman who came to fill out the accident report after the two guys in baseball caps had gone to the next town and called for help.
November 1999The Bribe
Grace and I had agreed to pick up Paul at the airport in Guatemala City. Suzie, Paul’s girlfriend and our fellow Peace Corps volunteer, had to build chicken coops in a village near Santiago and couldn’t leave in time to meet him, so she’d asked us to go in her place.
September 1999Distance
Rain pounded on the train-station roof like kettle-drums. We were the only two foreigners in the waiting area, and faces turned each time we spoke, watching and listening. But this didn’t bother us. We had been in China long enough now that we were immune. We could say anything in public, as long as we said it in English.
July 1999Japanese Food
My friend Howard doesn’t want me to know that he’s dying. He hates all the movies and books and plays about AIDS, especially what happens at the end. He says they turn something real into a sappy, pointless melodrama. But that’s not why he hasn’t told me.
March 1999Manna
I wondered what kind of food could drop from the sky like dew. Something that would melt on the tongue like a kiss and fill the body with strength.
January 1999
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