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#611
Halloween 1986Having no place to go, unwilling or unable to wait, they did it in the streetbehind the pictures, an arched back and an exit doorseparating fiction and reality. 11 November 1986 I...
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Elizabeth Costello: Eight Lessons
(Let me add, entirely parenthetically, that I as a person, as a personality, am overwhelmed, that my thinking is thrown into confusion and helplessness, by the fact of suffering in the world, and not...
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#612
SurrogateI knew what he wanted: he wanted me. No; that's too crude. He wanted a part of me. Still less: just to use. No; that's still vulgar. He wanted to be heldand yet I denied him. And he could not...
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#613
Scars(For M.) I circumcised my heart for her. It lay bare and bled for days. But after a while it turned hard. I still said those familiar thingsbecause I'd always said them andone day I said them to...
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#614
Guilt BoxWe kept it in a box –our guilt –and fed it dailyand watched it outgrow usbut we wouldn't let it goand finally it consumed us. 16 December 1987 I’ve written two or three poems like this. I...
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#615
MemoriesThe truth is hardlike yesterday's friendand if we must live with the pastdoes it have to feel like incest? 17 December 1987 I can’t remember the last time I spoke to Rita. It was long after...
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#616
Julia PleaseI told her that I loved herto fill the gaps between us. But the gaps were too bigand my words were too small. So with nothing more to cling toshe held herself and shivered, then with...
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#617
The Return of the Drowning ManI thought he'd gonebut I was wrong. Weighed down by feelingshe'd sunken deeper inside me. (Only the darkest passionslive this far down.) And I could feelthe weight of the...
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#618
LookersI don't know what William saw in us. It's true, he used to undress us with his eyesbut they were so gentleyou couldn't be angry with him. He had his name for all the girls. He used to call me...
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Gatekeeper
Kay Sexton writes with loving clarity about the natural world, and is astute about the complexity and cost of our negotiations with it.... …absorbing and highly readable....— Hilary Mantel, author of...
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#619
Hot StuffI never thought he might have been in pain. No one told me there was pain in not understanding. They said ignorance was bliss. Once I let him touch me and then I saw it in his eyes. And he ran...
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#620
The Lady DoctorWilliam spoke of his "scars"–which I thought showed remarkable insight –and he tried to look down my blouse. I let him lookthough I could see he didn't understandbut he believed. He...
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#621
The SurgeonOne of my patients died today. Strapped to a tableit was an inglorious death, not that I've seen one that wasn't. I've heard of them, and I've heard of heroes, and I've heard that how we...
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#622
ThingsThe house was full of thingsno one understood except him. He gave them namesto make them real. He said that was important. Things should have names. He asked me mine – and I lied. 12 September...
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The SeerOnce I asked the great manwhy he painted Truth naked. "My boy," he smiled, "I like naked women."12 September 1988 If you’ve been following me over the last year or so something may have...
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#624
The BlasphemerI cursed Godand there was nothing. He must be dead. I never thoughthe might have been waiting –to see how far I'd go. 26 September 1988 I assume most people are familiar with the...
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#625
Quality GoodsAs a parting giftshe gave me a pure truthin a presentation box. I'd never seen one beforeand it made a nice paperweight. Then one day it broke in halfand I thoughthow useful to have two. 8...
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#626
Naked TruthWithout thinkingI barged into her roomonly to find her praying. She pausedand looked up in silencelike the time she caught me spyingas she undressed. But then she did not cover herself: her...
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Death in Profile
“Good old-fashioned police work, Bob,” Collison said with heavily overdone enthusiasm. “Nothing like it.” – Guy Fraser-Sampson, Death in ProfileThis is a first, the first time I’ve posted a review...
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#627
William's JigsawNo: why should you see my scars? You didn't share in my trialsso why should you look on my shame? If I was glass I'd let you look –but then there wouldn't be any scars, only fragments....
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