What a simple and acute request to
be able to speak to you again,
and frolic in your apartment
like honest athletes boiling and cascading
like bellowing smoke.
Firebird; Gumshoe; Bespoke
Strength to Endure
...I continue to have a literary camaraderie with these artists and appreciate their influence on my writing and life. I hope my writing has the same effect and has the strength to endure.
Fish Mandala
Ryan had decorated the dumpster with a bumper sticker of a line drawing of a fish. It's true that the simple fish had once been a secret way to let other Christians know you were Christian too, but when Ryan put the sticker there, he wasn’t trying to communicate anything about religion. He was saying, “Let’s go fishing.”
Of Malts and Mandalas
I have long been drawn to literature that explores the pressures on women and girls to conform to narrow gender norms. To name a few: Sula, Anna Karenina, Annie John, The Woman Warrior, and, more recently, Outlawed by Anna North. I used to be a Southern belle, and now I'm a feminist from hell, but either way, I pay for being female. So do Sula, Anna, Annie, and Maxine.