all the windows shut & still some stray wind shaking. shaking, i shiver awake. one a.m. wincing dog, go back to bed. i’m too tired to take a walk, & besides, this wind. a storm traveling due east. the hwy located two spits from my front step empties. at the front door the dog scratches the carpet, holds his leash between his teeth. i, myself, am too winded to wail. instead i wait.

magic sam

Don't Worry Spiders
Kobayashi Issa

Don't worry, spiders,
I keep house
casually.

every time i read anti-smoking comments on ohnotheydidnt i get pissed. listen: smoking involves a lot more than nicotine. i realize some people get physically addicted, but ummm, smoking is also emotional.

never once has liz suffered a nic fit, twitch omg i need a cigarette! i just loved to smoke. a pack or two a day. smoking was my hobby. hey elizabeth what are your weekend plans? oh, yknow, a carton. i recently quit smoking & it wasn’t v. difficult. i just stopped, without warning or premeditation. i do miss it.

i miss the smell of it. the taste of it. i miss riding in the car listening to astral weeks or white like white heat. cigarettes help you make friends: outside the bar, on campus, waiting for the bus or on break at work. they give you something do instead of staring at the wall all afternoon. they help you lose weight. they taste great with anything from old chub to miller lite. a boy’s mouth. the post-coital cigarette. smoking in bed. indoors is best. you don’t even have to leave the apartment for days if you have cigarettes.

this is what makes quiting hard. not nicotine. not the ever-touted “buzz”, fear of cancer or hacking coughs. cigarette love, cigarette life.

"Give me your hand:
Now I’m going to tell you how I went into that inexpressiveness that was always my blind, secret quest. How I went into what exists between the number one and the number two, how I saw the mysterious, fiery line, how it is a surreptitious line. Between two musical notes there exists another note, between two facts there exists another fact, between two grains of sand, no matter how close together they are, there exists an interval of space, there exists a sensing between sensing—in the interstices of primordial matter there is the mysterious, fiery line that is the world’s breathing, and the world’s continual breathing is what we hear and call silence. "

--Clarice Lispector
(from The Passion According to G. H.)

day

night

bars, bars, bars

before dawn i braid my hair. two long tails that swing as i move living room, hall, kitchen. oatmeal for breakfast, cigarette in the car. six cups of constant comment: i clock-in, no twitch of exhaustion. exhaustion: two am, up reading biographies of society women. she spent half her life in front of a mirror. i’ll spend mine typing. a steady rhythm: tim woodman's whimsical garden art is designed for indoor or outdoor use. i barely see what’s written. my desk shoved against the window, blinds opened a finger’s width. no, i’ll spend half my day staring. around noon a coworker interrupts want to sign linda’s card? sure though i can’t place name or face. best birthday wishes xo elizabeth. in the break room, a party. strawberry cake, black streamers, banner over the hill r.i.p. i sing softly. wait for the appropriate moment to leave, return to my desk. the typing begins again. a steady rhythm.

suddenly sun, a break in wind. i can stand on the sidewalk in thin sweater, light a cigarette first try. spring: i almost failed to notice you save the shortened workday. eight hours, six, four. mimosas on the front porch, m’s quick kiss in the kitchen; i loose my footing. outside, even the daisies make my skin look pale. beneath an oak tree, i spread a tattered blanket, spread my skirt perfect O. here kitty kitty. the cat passes without acknowledging my presence. such a browned afternoon; already darkness coming at its edges. 6 p.m.: a scotch to bring in the sunset. a couch, feet propped, t.v. off. i open the blinds. the fucking heat lightening. m. smells my hair when i sit down. how easily i’ve slipped into this domestica. a kiss, prepared dish. i wink when i leave for work in the morning & wait, wait all day till i can come home again.

Interviewer: Are you a religious person even if only from a distance?
Christa Wolf: No, if you mean a church religion.
Interviewer: Never tried to be, not even in times of crisis?
Christa Wolf: Oh yes, one tries.

(from: interview in 2005)

on a bright day i sweep all obligations away. first, the responsibility of our bodies. m. wakes early. the heater puffs great gusts of steam, though, its nearly seventy out. sweat; my hand, beneath the sheets, our heat, a surprise. second, i burn breakfast. unpenetratable smoke. open the window & outside, children from the community center clap, sing hymns in hebrew Toda al’ kol’ ma shebarata Toda al’ ma sheli natata. third, off from work. i print to-do lists, cross nothing off. can’t bear the laundry mat, bank tellers in subdued colors will that be all, miss hall?these small indulgences. all afternoon, the couch & sun. at dusk, fuck it. let’s go walk. the dirt along the riverbank is wet. the grass glistens. from our dry spot, i roll a cigarette using lispector’s stream of life as my flat surface. to count time is merely a hypothesis. i hear her brushing her hair as i read this, hear her do all sorts of daily activities i can’t quite imagine beyond the text. it will never begin & it will never end. on a bright day watch as i sweep everything away.

I Saw a Man Pursuing the Horizon
Stephen Crane

I saw a man pursuing the horizon;
Round and round they sped.
I was disturbed at this;
I accosted the man.
"It is futile," I said,
"You can never - "

"You lie," he cried,
And ran on.

you realize she’s so made that it’s as if at any moment, at her own whim, her body could cease to live, could just thin out around her and disappear from sight, and that it’s in this threat that she sleeps, exposes herself to your view.

--m. duras

Our obituary writer is an extreme, pedantic gossip. He gets things wrong, but he gets them in detail. I had just started working at the paper. He thought I was an alcoholic; he told it to a man on night rewrite, who told it to all the people in the newsroom, who told it to the people at the culture desk. It is not so troubling to be thought an alcoholic; still, I preferred not. When he asked me out to lunch, I gladly went. His parents are from Poland. His name is Standish Hawthorne Smith. We went to a Greek restaurant. When we sat down, he held my hand. He asked whether Will has his divorce. I did not know quite what to say. I asked about his work. He smiled. He asked what I would like to drink. Nothing I thought. Then I remembered that nothing would be the order of an alcoholic on the wagon. My normal Scotch and water would not do. I asked for an ouzo. No alcoholic in his right mind, I thought, would have an ouzo. I had two. Standish walked me home. He said he wrote, and read, a lot of poetry. When we got to my door, he asked whether he might use the phone. He made three phone calls, going to the kitchen now and then, to poor himself another vodka. I sat in the living room, with a glass of wine. I had altogether lost my sense of purpose in the situation. After his hour or two of phone calls, he came to the living room. “Do you know,” he said, “three things are said to be true of every Polish houseguest. First, he raids your icebox. Then he reads your mail. Then he fires the maid.” He walked to a window, pulled the curtains, asked whether I would like him to fire the maid. He finally read some poetry instead. Anyway, Will’s gone.

--Renata Adler
(from Speedboat)

could scream all evening & not change a thing. i love when the details seem set, in place, then, a lose thread. oh unravel me baby. fuck me flatly when im drowsydeadout & cannot defend. finals & moving out, so stressed i don't know. packed all afternoon. a maze of boxes lines the room; the cats race them for fun. water was cut off around one. wearing a skirt simplifies the act of peeing in the backyard. four times already. wish i could just sit & scratch my own back, yknow, relax. beer & cigarette. on the front porch, my feet propped up, watching the neighbors watching me through the shade trees.