sweetheart redux

The woman with the saggy breasts That woman with the saggy breasts is me But how on earth did that come to be? Mom sloped low with her burdened sigh, Now so do I, so do I.

September 29, 1990 the  faulty inspiration of alcohol. like a movie set, it appears to be real, but is not.

Being Women Together My mother and I were women together.  Well, okay, I was only her girl child for some of those years, but I quite precociously grasped one evening when I heard the plentiful and ebullient family next door having a barbecue that lasted roughly from noon until midnight the summer of my eleventh year the disquieting contrast between those noises and smells and the quiet dusk of our own kitchen. “I’m lonely.  I want more,” my sullen gaze telegraphed itself into her awareness. “I understand, one hundred percent” the squeeze she gave my hand – two short squeezes and a long one that felt particularly sincere and protective – transmitted. So – this was womanhood, was our own version of womanhood anyway – a cloud of dissatisfaction palpable as a self-separate entity, a runty bunny rabbit, white with those gruesome red eyes.

(I found one of my mom's old notebooks from the eighties.  her handwriting is atrocious but I'm transcribing her poetry) ************ Pinched and twisted In the dead of L.A. – Lost and more lost, she wanders, Not one word exchanged or offered- Bury and buy Again + again He exits Dripping gold Silent and dripping indifference Peripheral vision Revealed him Not to her.   Sheer wonder in Compromise . He’s glowing rays Of hate, death. Could his meaning have been Tender curiousity? The air is cool The sky is late The sidewalks are covered in Pages from desk calendars You (we) tread over days and days Of last year In which something happened – something – Lived and died – Putting me in a bleak park – Another lost day and dead years And dear but dead l.a. December 28 1989

Hole Guys always tell me they sold Frances Bean her first drugs and guys always tell me they're really not that into hugs and guys always say that poor Frances Bean was so sweet and guys always make me feel like a raw piece of meat. do these stories meet in the middle? she was little, I was little. She has a hole and her mother does too and so did my mom, but it just made her blue.

Stevie Smith (20 September 1902 – 7 March 1971 Died of a brain tumor A House of Mercy It was a house of female habitation, Two ladies fair inhabited the house, And they were brave. For although Fear knocked loud Upon the door, and said he must come in, They did not let him in. There were also two feeble babes, two girls, That Mrs. S. had by her husband had, He soon left them and went away to sea, Nor sent them money, nor came home again Except to borrow back Her Naval Officer's Wife's Allowance from Mrs. S. Who gave it him at once, she thought she should. There was also the ladies' aunt And babes' great aunt, a Mrs Martha Hearn Clode, And she was elderly. These ladies put their money all together And so we lived. I was the younger of the feeble babes And when I was a child my mother died And later Great Aunt Martha Hearn Clode died And later still my sister went away. Now I am old I tend my mother's sister The noble aunt who so l...

          Resumé Razors pain you; Rivers are damp; Acids stain you; And drugs cause cramp. Guns aren’t lawful; Nooses give; Gas smells awful; You might as well live. Inscription for the Ceiling of a Bedroom read by Ms. Parker Symptom Recital -- scene from the movie Mrs. Parker and the Vicious Circle starring Jennifer Jason Leigh