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Talking To My Mother, 1986–88

You call me at my new apartment. I wait for you to mention Grandma’s table one more time — it’s been in storage for a year since she died, waiting for a grandchild to claim it.

The Prom

A perfect summer night, muddy shoes, half a pizza

Raised By Cats

I took a deep breath. Whenever the ground is expecting, I like to walk. I can feel it reach right up through my legs to meet the sky. The blood of everything rises to meet the tension of the coming clouds before a good rain.

The Map

The scholars think they’ve got it figured out, or at least that one day they will. What a laugh! I feel like grabbing them all by their collars and shaking them, until they realize there’s nothing mathematical about the moon, nothing psychological about sex, nothing atomic about flesh. Look into a girl’s eyes and tell me she is just atoms.

Those Bodies

Kicking The Habit

Suzy Joins The Sex Club

I look at my kids and my husband and think of all the things we are together, and I think, isn’t it odd to be willing to risk all this so I can fuck some guy who washes dishes and whispers nasty things in my ear? 

Anatomy Lesson

I didn’t hear the word vulva until I was thirty. Instead I grew up hearing about it, my private parts, my down there. My mother and grandmother used Italian slang to refer to it: pesciuscia.

Profane

Innocence

When we’d been married for a while, I expected my husband to say “I love you,” which he’d never said except on the inside of my wedding ring. Instead he told me he thought I really liked women and encouraged me to listen to my instinctive self.