In Montague we ate fruit first. Downriver, pits we gave to the water eddied away and sank fast. The mill hosts parties, weddings, a bride is here, trailing tulle in the dust, we move cherries without looking from the bag to our mouths. I’d put my hands on them, the books that slept inside. I ran fingers up their spines above the Sawmill fifty feet down...
Winter had already come. I was reading Robert Lowell, whose ill-spirit sobbed in each blood cell. Nothing so fiercely felt, on my part. Each morning I read the American news and chose to take the bus to class so I could see the city. Flocks of schoolchildren in white coats took the place of pigeons, who preferred New York. Instead of the sun I imagined a...
The crease below the palm is red from your wax sheet: the shape of a dragon, turned down to me— you press the picture to a thin space over my wrist veins, it sticks, reluctant, the white back of it showing between your knuckles and the small hairs. This is the way of stains: slight erosion of the topcoat then the opaque intent. You...
What he heard in the old age What he said to the long flat stones What he heard in the old age Reemerged, throwing coins Against the walls Yelling for marble and slate Hammers and workmen and mules Fire extinguishers beehives magazines Pain killers and guns These we brought, seeing his face Already writing What he heard in the old age killed...
The champagne we chilled right in the courtyard, buried the bottles in the snow in clusters of four according to their size and color: full amber, half green, quarter clear. The Parisian winter had many uses but none more practical than this; I just remembered that would have been your last winter. It is good that it was a French winter, and not Russian, otherwise...
My mother came down to breakfast one day said I want a fireplace my father said why she said I want to return to La Sabanilla and he said alright we'll kill the birds. He cleared nests of gray-rumped swifts, short-tailed swifts, common swifts, night jars, the later spring birds, mississippi kites. The four of us were once on vacation on The Pfauninsel, the morning came...
We descended the narrow staircase into the darkened basement of the Briton Hadden Memorial Building, grim and determined. The derelict darkroom still smelled of photography chemicals, and a layer of dust coated every surface. We dug through boxes; we combed the shelves. Our mission was briefly derailed when Chris encountered a large cockroach, but his shrill cries of "Oh...
"The faith-based initiative is not about a single faith. In this country we're great because we've got many faiths, and we're great because you can choose whatever faith you choose, or if you choose no faith at all, you're still equally American. It's one of the great traditions of America that we will always hold sacred, and always should hold sacred." - George W. Bush...
After lunch on Wednesdays I catalogue monkey bones. I have catalogued quite a variety of bones: white bleached bones, yellow greasy bones, brown crusted bones. Bones suffering from osteoarthrital lipping, juvenile bones whose epiphysial lines have not yet fused, broken bones, shiny bones, dusty bones. I type up an inventory in the basement of the Yale Biological...
The vintage is a Lost Vineyards red. I lift the glass to my nose and inhale deeply. The bouquet is questionable, but I'm not going to judge yet. I swirl the wine and take my first sip. Ugh. The concoction might make a nice salad dressing, but it definitely doesn't qualify as a wine. Lost Vineyards isn't a find. In fact, the only thing lost is my...
