Writing
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It’s getting a little mythical
When the two finally met again, they shared their stories. And then, shyly, Woman led Man to the part of the riverbank where she had tried to make a baby. She showed him the crumbled mud shapes, the bundled roots, the animal pelts sewn into human shapes. Man told Woman about the fawn he’d tried to raise, and a baby he’d carved out of wood.
Categories: Prose, NaNoWriMo 2006
I dream in architecture
I know the castle was built in the Gothic style, because during college I was required to take an architecture class. Although… my aunt and I once toured a church together in France. As we went through, I pointed out various architectural elements and their significance. When we finished, I confidently announced the church was built “in the 18th century.” The plaque on the wall read “1956.”
Categories: Prose, NaNoWriMo 2006
Where there’s smoke, I’ll be running the other way
“This is a special situation, because as you know blah blahblah blah…” It’s not that I stopped paying attention, exactly–as every student knows, you have to keep at least one ear on the teacher so you can hear certain keywords, like your name or “recess”–it’s that I didn’t particularly care what the reason for the field trip was. I mean: it was a field trip. Who needs a reason?
At one point in Teacher’s speech, she did in fact mention a keyword. Not my name, but she nevertheless had my full attention.
“Fire?!” I screamed.
Categories: Prose, NaNoWriMo 2006
So there we were…
So there we were, twenty feet from the riverbank, creeping up on an oblivious squadron of ducks, surrounded by daffodils and weeping willows, when my father turned me into a chronic liar.
It started earlier that day, at the post office. Or it started years before, when he enlisted in the Air Force. Or centuries before, when two cavemen met midway between their respective caves and brandished clubs at each other, creating the first impromptu defense services. Later, the winner went home to his family, sat down by the fire, and grunted “So there we were, face to face in the open plain, when…”
Categories: Prose, NaNoWriMo 2006
JuPo #7
all those years you blamed
the taxi and some late-night traffic jam
that ate up your hours like I’d had dinner:
in starts and stops at each new sound,
Categories: Poetry, JuPoWriMo 2006
JuPo #6
By the third day, rust stains the bandages
wrapped around your arm, around the pins that hold
your bones in place.
Categories: Poetry, JuPoWriMo 2006
JuPo #5
You in the hospital after hitting a light pole
head-on, forty miles per hour, dying--
doctors said dying, machines beeped and beeped,
you stared at nothing: not me, not the future,
not light fixtures on the ceiling.
Categories: Poetry, JuPoWriMo 2006
JuPo #4
You painted the spare room blue, stenciled sailboats.
Then yellow: an office neither of us would use.
We stacked seasonal boxes in the corner, bought
an air mattress for the guests we never had. I kept
the door closed: easier than confronting all the dust.
Categories: Poetry, JuPoWriMo 2006
JuPo #3
She doesn’t smile at the clerk’s hello.
Pays cash. Asks for paper,
not plastic.
Categories: Poetry, JuPoWriMo 2006
JuPo #2
HSN doesn’t stock
gadgets that resolve confrontation, so I bought a set of knives
that slice through bone. Two talking heads before a picket fence
promised millions in real estate, but their videos don’t explain
how to market the distance between us.
Categories: Poetry, JuPoWriMo 2006