Every day, in the intense Arizona sunlight, the cars streamed by along the highway, crossing the desert towards California, and the old lady sat in a rocking-chair on the cement porch of the tourist cabin and counted them. 

Theoretically we love the forced communions of urban life. Practically we avoid them.

The first time Avram went over the bar everywhere he looked emerald Pacific Ocean was working, except for the sky-firm above all that motion and the cast of blue he imagined one would see on a television 

A PAPER

And so it goes, God created the heavens and the earth. And the earth was formless and empty; and on its deep face was darkness. And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters. And God said, Let there be light, and there was light. And God saw the light, and He was pleased. And God divided light from darkness. And God called the light Day, and the darkness He called Night. And the evening and the morning were the first day. And light stole the darkness of the night from the paper. And the writer saw the whiteness of the paper and that it was empty. And the emptiness of the paper filled the writer with emptiness. And the writer called the emptiness of the paper the death of the writer.

Subject is a freak. Subject investigates own reflection: Long hair—check. Funky beard—check. Headband—check. Body odor—check. 

A foolish trip up to a dark. Midlands town, the pelting cold rain soaking into the black brick of the factories like old bad oil, glistening nothing. A wasted trip, through the good offices of the local M.P. Town fathers showed me everything and showed me nothing.

Bea walks into the classroom wearing the clothes she had on the day before. The Teacher understands that this is going to be a bad day. Bea’s hair is uncombed, face unwashed. She arrives precisely twelve seconds late. Not so late that the Teacher has to make a big deal about it. But not on time. Bea walks like a prisoner forcibly escorted, snatching herself along, step by step, then pouring her thin body into the seat. She has no books, no pencil or paper. She drapes herself over the desk and waits for the Teacher to continue or challenge.

Pauline had forgotten about the straw seats on the train. She had a half-hour’s ride from Newark to the Hoboken ferry terminal, and the moment she took her seat she was attacked through

I moved to Los Angeles to sing. When was this? August? June? I was twenty-nine, and those were shapeless months, when the days blended together and I refused to pull them apart.

My landlord was unusually close to her adult son. His name was Jeffrey, and my landlord said he was around my age. I’d never met him even though his apartment was apparently only twelve minutes away. I lived on the bottom floor of her dilapidated duplex; she lived upstairs. Every night I’d fall asleep to the sound of her feet shuffling across the thin wood floor above me.

I slept with my bedroom windows open, hoping for a breeze to carry in the burned-air smell of the city. Instead, my landlord would wake me up in the morning by pulling aside my curtain and thrusting her hand inside my room, offering me a gift—a spare tomato or a pamphlet about the Hare Krishnas.

Used to be, I was always saying, This doesn’t count. I lived my life in secret, like if nobody saw, I didn’t really have it. I was barely there. I wouldn’t admit to a thing. Now I know that what humans observe