Shirley

Where do Trumpies go when they die? It’s a question. One I knew is in a box now, in crumbs, covered over with plain graveyard dirt. The stone doesn’t say Here Lies a Man Who Voted for Bully. But it’s true. He grinned—this was maybe 2016—when Bully’s name came up at the dinner table, and I snapped, “Don’t you ever laugh about him again.” Something like that—I forget what, exactly. It wiped the smile right off his face. But not for long. Then, that a proud pussy grabber could be running for president was what dominated the headlines. We weren’t talking pardons for insurrectionists, techie DOGE boys accessing government information (old news, yes yes), a police-run society . Obviously, nobody burned to a powder can ever again cast a ballot in favor of a lecherous narcissist, but voting as the man reduced to crumbs did, twice, is now his spiritual legacy. Tuesday, Heather Cox Richardson posted this: “While the Senate considered the [Big Beautiful Bill] today, President Donald J. Trum...

Susan, she of the poetry , said I must try Broder’s book. ( Milk Fed —what’s that one about? Pumpkins? Almanzo’s in Farmer Boy, a bowl parked next to it?) I pull into the desert town at sunset, begins Broder, feeling empty. I felt empty the whole drive from Los Angeles and hoped that my arrival would alleviate the emptiness, so when the emptiness is not alleviated, not even momentarily (all emptiness-alleviators are temporary), I feel emptier. Mm, nice. Just a minor change, maybe. I pull into the desert town at sunset feeling empty. I felt empty the whole drive from Los Angeles and hoped that my arrival would alleviate the emptiness. (W hen the emptiness is not alleviated, not even momentarily— all emptiness-alleviators are temporary—I feel emptie r.) Isn’t this the tiniest bit better? “ Help me not be empty,” I say to god in the Best Western parking lot, continues Broder. Since I don’t turn to god very often, I feel self-conscious when I do. I’m not sure what I’m allowed t...

Her Falls , or (Not) Navigating the Terrain    This one wasn’t anything, really. Clutching the green tomatoes she’d just picked for a pie for her husband, she went to step back onto the patio but her foot caught on the concrete edge. “Gotta keep my head up,” she told herself on the way down. “I can’t hit the patio with my head.” “Go get Dad,” she called to son Phil in the living room, tomatoes all around her. He’d come to the cottage to visit. She doesn’t think she made the pie. This second one, she was watching helicopter rides at a fundraiser event down the road from the retirement complex. Standing under a tree at the edge of the field, she was getting tired. She propped herself against the trunk for a bit, then decided to head back to the auction tent. A twig on the ground, though, caught her notice. It might cause somebody to trip. She smacked her foot down on it to break it—and suddenly dizzy, she crumpled. “Are you okay?” asked one of the young guys sitting near...

Friday Afternoon En route to cousin Ann’s house, relegated to the back seat, I keep clicking clicking, trying to catch perfectly son and mother. But what’s more telling is the visit. We’re met by Ann at her front door. I’m right behind Mom, ready to grab at her if she topples. “Now you’re a spring chicken!” I announce to Ann, because it’s Mom, not Ann, who’s 95. Spring chicken relatively speaking, I mean, because being around somebody ancient makes you suddenly young. I’m practically a chick today. But right away Ann, her round eyes a-sparkle, lets out that she’s 91. Oh my. Paulson and I didn’t realize. As we navigate past her, what else flies out of her mouth is a Bible verse, although for all I know it’s Ben Franklin. “They that compare themselves among themselves are not wise,” she chortles. Paulson loves it. I love it. We laugh and laugh. She’s always been a wit. Clearly she still has it in her. Circumlocution is such a bear at this age. An outing like this, away from the ...

Here it is again—the video   I posted some time back, featuring that cud chewer . We’d visited a camel dairy in Indiana. Not Indiana, but that’s how I told it, wanting to preserve the farm family’s identity. They were shipping the milk on dry ice. I didn’t show you any faces, besides the camels’. But here are two of the children who joined us in the barn. You’re getting only glimpses. No red-enameled toes poking from shoes like Mrs. Finkelstein’s, ravaged by artifice. Instead these were just as God made them, bare and unafraid. Undefiled. Holy.    

As for dreams, here’s something I sent to an editor twenty-odd years ago when I was still submitting stuff to the church magazines. He sent it back. It was supposed to be a poem. Poetry confused—annoyed—me. Just chop up some regular sentences? How’d that make them poems? So I was experimenting. I thought the editor might fall for it. “No stalls, 1960,” I titled it. Around then, I’m guessing, is when the ladies had paraded past in my head. On the cusp of the ’60s, we good church people’d known perfectly well between right and wrong. Walls and fences kept things tidy. Stalls, too. Everybody reading the magazine remembered. I knew they’d get Peter, too—at least, his dream. His piety. Strict Jewishness. His kosher beliefs, his deep gut convictions. Even now, just because the editor didn’t bite doesn’t mean I was totally off. I don’t think.   In the middle of the night, folks were marching to Zion. They were lined up double breasted, walking pretty fast down Front Street. She re...