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Surviving The Fall

A Physician Comes Of Age

Now I gradually reconstructed the story of my father’s death, piece by piece. Despite the many gaping holes remaining, I realized that it was most likely not, as I had grown up believing, an accident. The truth was he hadn’t fallen from that window; he’d jumped.

Doctors

A misdiagnosis; a long, wet kiss; a ring from the garden

An Erotic Way Of Life

As I’ve been writing a book about sex in recent months, I’ve had the Kama Sutra, the Indian guide to personal sexual culture, on my desk, and I’ve occasionally consulted the Internet to track down relevant books and articles. On the Internet, I’ve noticed, as soon as you venture in the direction of sex you quickly come upon crude, unadorned images of stark sexual union. Apparently we have finally found a public place where we can show our private parts and secret fantasies free of the repressive eyes of the government agencies that serve our culture’s dominant puritan philosophies. But here there is no love, little sentimentality, and almost nothing that could be called foreplay in any innocent sense of the word.

Fifty-Two

At forty, you may have half your life in front of you; at fifty-two, it’s not likely. In your thirties you may worry about losing your looks; in your fifties you worry about losing your capacities.

Selected Poems

Selected Poems

Moving Scott’s Car

The other day, my brother Scott asked me if I’d be willing to move his car on street-cleaning days, if he ever became too sick to do it. “I can’t drive a stick shift,” I said, relieved to have the excuse of ineptitude.

Acts Of Love

“Dr. O’Brien told me about your, um . . . act of love,” says Syd, the therapeutic-shoe salesman, shifting uncomfortably from one foot to the other. “I was totally moved.”

My Fat Lover

My lover is fat. It upsets some people to hear me state this so baldly. “Doesn’t it hurt her feelings?” they ask, as if the polite thing were to act as if I hadn’t noticed that my lover weighs nearly three hundred pounds. Perhaps they think she hasn’t noticed, either — that, upon reading what I have written, she will realize for the very first time that she is fat.

The Polish Language

A faint murmur weaves its way through my dreams, like a radio turned down low. It’s my mother’s voice, but I can’t understand what she’s saying. Sometimes, in the moment just before I wake, I hear her more clearly — urgent, insistent, warning.