I Always Work In A Room Where

She Had Given Birth To Me And Nursed Me And Brought Me Up. She Had Known Me Before I Knew Myself And Now She Had No Say In The Matter. Life Started Out One Thing And Then Suddenly Turned A Corner And Became Something Else.

Jerome Was Sliding And Climbing On Top Of Me And It Felt Like It Had The Night Before, Like A Crushing Weight. So Do Boys And Men Announce Their Intentions. They Cover You Like A Sarcophagus Lid. And Call It Love.

In The End, It Wasn't Death That Surprised Her But The Stubbornness Of Life.

Reading A Novel After Reading Semiotic Theory Was Like Jogging Empty-handed After Jogging With Hand Weights. What Exquisite Guilt She Felt, Wickedly Enjoying Narrative! Madeleine Felt Safe With A Nineteenth Century Novel. There Were Going To Be People In It. Something Was Going To Happen To Them In A Place Resembling The World. Then Too There Were Lots Of Weddings In Wharton And Austen. There Were All Kinds Of Irresistible Gloomy Men.

But In The End It Wasn't Up To Me. The Bigs Things Never Are. Birth, I Mean, And Death. And Love. And What Love Bequeaths To Us Before We're Born.