Afterwards everything whitened
like paper or breath—
The room was suddenly anchored to itself,
the chains stopped groaning.
I knew I could not leave with you.
The sea outside was like the sea
on the map. A sea-god was blowing
into a crosshatched arc of sails.
How do I know
this stark room, the wooden chair,
the antique book in its lap,
the drawers lined with cedar,
the two folded shirts, his and mine,
the map of the Mediterranean World
in a frame, its sea faded turquoise?
Have you come here too?
Is this a place you recognize?
To Nissim Ezekiel
Friends, brothers, sisters, wellwishers
And our esteemed guests from foreign,
Today we welcome to our humble
Abode in Navsari, Gujarat, a precious
Addition to our family,
Our daughter-in-law Emily Curry
Hailing from Lankasire, UK.
On this auspicious day Miss Emily,
Now Mrs, has tied the knot
Of holy matrimony
With our youngest Mahess.
Your parents grow older, perhaps
old. The same conversations,
yellow like the walls,
Once upon a time there was a girl named Božena. She grew up in a small village where she loved to gather strawberries and play in the fields. As a teenager she was given special permission to visit the castle library, where she read romantic books and dreamed of a future filled with love and literature. She was known for her shiny dark hair and her dancing, and was crowned the Queen of the Dahlia Ball. Soon after, she got married, but she did not live happily ever after.
By NALINI JONES
for Cliff and Pete
Somewhere in the attic I have letters from Bud, typed on a real typewriter and sent to me when I was in high school and college. The letters chronicle the adventures of his terrier and on occasion were written in the dog’s voice. The dog used to wait for his chance—when the man was sleeping or when he took up his guitar in a corner of a room with a bottle and some cigarettes, maybe the beginnings of a tune. Then the dog would leap to the typewriter and start tapping the keys with small white paws.
When I was seven years old, we moved from Cleveland to New York City. I remember when my parents announced the decision to me and my two sisters. We were eating dinner at the aluminum kitchen table of our suburban home. Their tone was excitingly conspiratorial. They told us not to tell anyone just yet, not until plans were settled. The aspects of the move that might have troubled me—leaving relatives, friends, my bedroom, and my school—paled in comparison to the fact that I had been entrusted with a secret.
“Hell, there are no rules here—we’re trying
to accomplish something.”
—thomas edison
i
there were seventeen witnesses for the first execution of a human being by electrocution. William Kemmler, a sometime peddler of produce and a heavy drinker, was sentenced to death on March 29, 1889, for killing his common-law wife, Matilda Ziegler, with a hatchet. There are few details about Kemmler or his life. Born in Philadelphia but raised in Buffalo, he was said to be slender, with brown hair tending toward black. We know his parents were alcoholic immigrants from Germany. He could speak both German and English but couldn’t read a word. We also know that his father was a butcher who died after a cut he received in a drunken brawl became infected. His mother died less accidentally from alcoholism.
“Only he who attempts the absurd is
capable of achieving the impossible.”
—miguel de unamuno
Monday, april 17.
When you finish reading the last of these seven letters, you will be dead.
Oh, not right away, my enemy, my friend. There are still many pages to be turned, many words to be devoured. You will receive one letter every day, just like today, by courier with no return address, drip by drip, each morning’s venom, just in time, always just before you shut yourself tight and cozy inside your study to work on your most recent review, your daily dose of toxic excess.
That winter they hired a small bus—Mother had suggested that Father should be buried in the village. Where he was born.
Sasha hadn’t argued.
“What do you think, son?” asked Mother in a completely unfamiliar tone. Until then, there had always been a man’s voice that had the final word in the house. Now, that voice was dead.
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