She Left Me The Way People Leave

The Body Is Ready To Have Babies. Nature Wants It Done Then, When The Body Can Handle It, Not After 40, When The Income Can Handle It.

One Of The Monstrous Things That Slavery In This Country Caused Was The Breakup Of Families. I Mean, Physical Labor, Horrible; Beatings, Horrible; Lynching Death, All Of That, Horrible. But The Living Life Of A Parent Who, A, Has No Control Over What Happens To Your Children, None. They Don't Belong To You. You May Not Even Nurse Them. They May Be Shipped Off Somewhere, As In "beloved" The Mother Was, To Be Nursed By Somebody Who Was Not Able To Work In The Fields And Was A Wet Nurse.

All She Saw, Down In The Cellar Well Beneath The Stoop, Was A Light Yellow Feather With A Tip Of Green. And She Had Never Named Him. Had Called Him "my Parrot" All These Years. "my Parrot." "love You. "love You." Did The Dogs Get Him? Or Did He Get The Message - That She Said, "my Parrot" And He Said, "love You," And She Had Never Said It Back Or Even Taken The Trouble To Name Him - And Manage Somehow To Fly Away On Wings That Had Not Soared For Six Years.

My Theory Is That The World Is A Difficult Place To Live In And Distraction Is The Name Of The Game.

In Order To Be As Free As I Possibly Can, In My Own Imagination, I Can't Take Positions That Are Closed. Everything I've Ever Done, In The Writing World, Has Been To Expand Articulation, Rather Than To Close It, To Open Doors, Sometimes, Not Even Closing The Book -- Leaving The Endings Open For Reinterpretation, Revisitation, A Little Ambiguity.