No Poem Is the Only Poem. No Story Is the Only Story.
My college was one of the last universities in the country still standing after a horrible plague that had killed billions. The remaining educational institutions had been reduced to rubble with their libraries burned in protest of what some had called state-sponsored indoctrination.
In the morning she would wrap her arms around me and apologize, but it would happen again, the next night. I didn’t know what to do. I was running out of ways to comfort her. One morning, almost two weeks after what happened, I kissed her and asked, “Is there somewhere you’d feel safer?”
Argos is a puppy when Odysseus leaves his home to fight in the Trojan War, wander for many years upon wine-dark seas, visit distant cities, delve into the minds of many men, taste the favors of women and goddesses.
Dear Writer...
From my back porch I have a panoramic view of east Berkeley and the San Francisco Bay, with the city skyline sparkling across the water. On clear nights the downtown lights twinkle high against the sky, doubled by their reflection in the smooth, dark bay. Below them, the lights of Berkeley are dimmer.
I've become a convenient woman. I hold my tongue — swollen like a dead fish — motionless behind pressed lips.