Issue 163 News Today

I live in a one-bedroom apartment at the end of the 2/5, near Brooklyn College, on the outskirts of a neighborhood full of grand Victorian homes. Because I live within a certain radius of the college, I am considered a community member and allowed, for a small fee, an ID. I like to wander the campus, a project of the Works Progress Administration. I check out books from the

CW: police violence, mention of blood 

Breakfast did not taste normal, so I went to Gilcren, questioning.He cracked me on the face and said there were ants in the cereal, which was of course my fault. I had, years ago, dislearned, which made me always to blame for trouble of this kind. I have an idea how this will sound, but events do map a life. Smarting from Gilcren’s hand, I came again to the single fact:

They get to the class, Alice parking the car, the tires pressing up against piles of slushy, dirt-stained snow. Icicles are hanging from the swim building, looking threatening. Alice hates the winter. She thinks it’s morbid. She goes around to the rear passenger door of the car and opens it. There’s always a small part of her that wants to linger outside a moment longer.

I’ve solved the problemwith his Pork Chops Foyot.That you can do chicken,you just have to slice the filletsthrough first. Then dust themwith flour and brown themin butter. I watch my handsuse the tools he left me,the lemon juicer I gave him,and the white casserole dishwith the pale blue rim so old and soFrench. A million tiny cracksin the glaze. I slice the onions thinon his

You will forget everything we talked about when you sit down to speak with him. You will want to meet with him somewhere safe. Somewhere public. A park. A cafe. Remember, this is wrong. He’s smart. He knows how to remind you of the early days when you were in love. Even now, he’s a romantic. Talk to him, instead, in a parked car. At that rundown lot that used to be a gas

A thousand large wings; the tickings and tocksof a thousand small clocks; fifty sprung springson the dark dark sidewalk; sometimes, I say,it’s like padlocks tsking around their keys; burning sod; burning trees; burning knee sockscracking blackly on their pins; picture breeze,    I say, when you’re dying to sleep; it pings   your lips like pine shade; blood is not it; day-light

But sometimes waits for years to see it pass overheadmaybe it coasts elegant as a white boator rides loose and wild as gray hair torn from sleep,and when it disappearsthe same wind that pushes it from viewencourages the tree to say goodbye, leaves flashing like minnows—

I want to ride to the ridge where the West commencesAnd gaze at the moon till I lose my sensesAnd I can't look at hobbles and I can't stand fences—Cole Porter & Robert Fletcher, 1934I wade through water and I wade through mudEvery time I calm down it’s a bucket o’ blood—Dixie chain gang field holler…gone ballistic, not home but bloodon the range…—Wanda Coleman, American Sonnet

How much more will I sow and never eat? goes the idiot’s question. Which merits an idiot’s answer: how much time is there in the universe? You will miss most things, but it’s not your fault. Out there, the limit is light, and what you can see by it. Down here, pressure makes most of the ocean an X. But absence is different from loss. Most springs have not been taken, just