It Was Sad And Fierce

"i'm Not Going Anywhere," She Told Me That Night. But Until We Are Old Ladies-a Cypress Age, A Sawtooth Age-i Will Continue To Link Arms With Her, In Public, In Private, In A Panic Of Love.

Any Place, Then, Can Become A Cemetery. All It Takes Is Your Body. It's Not Fair, I Think, And I Get This Petulant Wish For Ugly Flowers And Mourners, My Mother's Old Familiar Grief. Somebody I Love To Tend My Future Grave. Probably This Is The Wrong Thing To Be Wishing For.

In Short Stories There's More Permission To Be Elliptical. You Can Have Image-logic, Or It's Almost Like A Poem In That You Can Come To A Lot Of Meanings Within A Short Space.

Granana Doesn't Understand What The Big Deal Is. She Didn't Cry At Olivia's Funeral, And I Doubt She Even Remembers Olivia's Name. Granana Lost, Like, Ninety-two Million Kids In Childbirth. All Of Her Brothers Died In The War. She Survived The Depression By Stealing Radish Bulbs From Her Neighbors' Garden, And Fishing The Elms For Pigeons. Dad Likes To Remind Us Of This In A Grave Voice, As If It Explained Her Jaundiced Pitilessness: "boys. Your Grandmother Ate Pigeons."

I Came To Hate The Complainers, With Their Dry And Crumbly Lipsticks And Their Wrinkled Rage And Their Stupid, Flaccid, Old-people Sun Hats With Brims The Breadth Of Saturn's Rings.