corvus
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Alone among flowers my jug of wine-- peach-blossomed forgetfulness and late evening shine-- wine over bridge is bridge over water, and moon in a rippling sky. Someone invited that mute old loon to join us on the West Lake. Our lips open to a tune: "By the huai he we walk like immortals..." Your feet are wet with dew. A cock in the hills awakess a gray sun-- my companions must scatter, and night is gone; I feign sleep on this cold bed in the silent hour
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Because, Alfredo, the world has many things, I tried to discern dreams from skin, and other useless symmetries. It was many years before the ragged brown of the earth let me lift my gaze above the emptied branches. The rooftops and you are made from the same metal, and the same gray sky, softer than thistledown, as cold as mornings after a window was left open to predict your eyes. When we meet, I will say: "Do you not remember, Alfredo, that time, long ago...?" As
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Witness the great man in this hour— A proud man and his intolerable tears, With the fool’s mark hung around his ears. The rich ochre of his virtue is faded, And the crown-bearing trumpeter dead. Witness the great man now fallen, Stripped, lashed, bewildered by himself; The vain cannot bear to look upon themselves. Poor man! The world pens him in his mind And blows his nakedness with a gay wind. Now witness the slop-dished, half-mad mouths From whom the king beseeches gentle
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And one day I'll forget the smell of his hair, his eye's pitch black. One day I'll drop I suppose. the last words he said, and then the first, splintering like bells without rhythm. One day I'll be unharmed by the small mole on his chin, the sheets that we shared. My mind will be white again. Each day, I think: This is the day, and then I believe it until a knot grooves my brain, and I'm enfolded in the terrible black light again.
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I sit at a table with a tablecloth of hearts, And put my hands on the tablecloth of hearts, And notice that there are many colors In the sticky soda-stained tablecloth of hearts, And all the while I am saying in a voice of thunder, Cracking plastic with my voice of thunder: “DON’T YOU KNOW I SWING THE OTHER WAY?” And this voice is so loud It crashes out of my head and bolts to my hands And spills my Coke all over my pants, And the girl next door is asking in voice of sugar,
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Hurt has told him not to listen, And he has not listened— Some kite’s frayed tail of words Has followed him these years Like a letter unopened, Like a wound he does not believe Is festering. Hurt now tells him to listen, But he will not listen. Blackness is tangled in his mind, or his mind Has become the shadow of a bowl Collecting fragments of forms, And each so lonely He would hold up his hands for them Because he knows he will cry if he listens; He knows he will
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The color was of fogged windows and steel, Or a mercury lake, across which swam Ripples of a silent V, gliding southward And skyward like fluttering playbills Expunged from a theatre archway, advertising to the snow A matinee of The Dying Swan this Wednesday at noon, a time For girls with cigarettes to wait at the Café Rusticana, The small orange lights of their mouths the closest thing To stars beneath such a sky. And yet this host Recognizes nothing that is there: the color
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chapter 9 Tuesday, as far as Mike was concerned, was over. A little indulgence at lunch was probably called for. He took the overpriced smoothie with his burger and fries to one of the empty tables that overlooked the bustle of Telegraph Avenue. There was a light breeze. Towards the campus entrance, there were several skateboarders trying to do tricks on a wheelchair ramp. Eye candy, Mike thought with a faint smile. The two midterms had gone as well—or as badly—as he had expected. Hi
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chapter 8 Mike stared at the ceiling as he listened to the sounds of the house. It was nearly noon. He had lain awake for some time, trying to ignore the fact that this was Sunday. He could hear neither his father nor Steve; there was only the sound of the stove fan's hum. Mike wondered if his father had told his mother already, and could not decide if that was preferable or not. He got up at last. A few minutes later, he wandered into the kitchen and was surprised was surprised to s
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chapter 7 The train ride home that Friday provided Mike with a lot of time to think. He spent it trying not to think of anything at all. He had turned down Dan's offer to go to Gil's place earlier that day. It had both pleased him and unsettled him further when Dan decided not to go either. They had ended up having dinner at the pizza joint, which was as good a place as any to do what he had promised himself and Winston that he would do. But as he sat on the vinyl-coated chair, tryin
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chapter 6 Winston left early that morning. He might have said something before going, but Mike did not remember. When he did get up, he spent a few minutes searching his room to make sure Winston had not left his wedding ring again. He had not. For the rest of the day, Mike occupied himself by dreading the two midterms he would be taking next Tuesday, both of which he had forgotten about until now. Marginal cost dogged him for most of the afternoon. It was only for brief moments that
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chapter 5 They arranged to skip the lunchtime meeting so that Winston could get out of work earlier. At a little past six, Mike opened the door and found himself pressed against the wall, Winston’s lips planted hungrily on his own. “Hey, let me shut the door first,” Mike muttered, grinning. “Sex or dinner?” Mike groaned. “Dinner.” “Mm. We could have a quickie.” Mike shuddered. The other man’s hardness was grinding against his own, and Winston’s mouth on the hollow
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chapter 4 Winston brought nothing with him the next time they had sex. He was also more taciturn, less rushed, but they were just as quick in reaching climax, which they hit with quiet and separate grunts. Mike decided in the afterglow that the silence felt suitable. Winston had kept his wedding ring on the whole time, and Mike wondered if he should mention it, even—though he dismissed the notion right away—compliment him on it. “I probably won’t have time the rest of this week,” Win
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chapter 3 Mike wiped his palms against his pants as surreptitiously as possible, even though there was no one else in the dimly-lit corridor. Even from outside, he could hear music and the occasional bark of laughter. He let a few moments pass before lifting his hand, lowering it, and raising it a second time. Then, as if by itself, the door swung open. “Hey,” Mike greeted as firmly as he could. The girl who opened the door stepped back. “Hey,” she said and vanished the mom
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chapter 2 It was a hot day, and the sweat Mike felt running down his back was as much due to the heat as his nervousness. Nonetheless, he had gotten himself a coffee, which he doubted he would actually finish. He checked his watch again; it was two minutes past one. Winston was two minutes late. He had bent over and tilted his cup to take a sip when he saw a man walking swiftly towards the coffee shop entrance. He was wearing a deep blue blazer over a pastel shirt, and conspicuously
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MIKE AND WINSTON chapter 1 “So you’ll do it this weekend?” The other man finished pulling on his socks and reached for his dress shirt, heaped with their other clothes on the floor. “I’ll tell her tomorrow,” said Winston. He glanced back. Mike nodded. “I’ll do it, too. My dad’ll be back.” And he would also be seeing Dan today, Mike thought. He would tell Dan in order to explain why he had to refuse the offer. “We should do it on Sunday,” Winston muttered, turning down the collar of
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College wasn't supposed to be a dull and solitary routine. Mike decides to break it. Against his better judgment, he meets Winston, a thirty-something man both married and closeted, and begins an unexpected journey of personal discovery, trials, and, perhaps, triumph.
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2008 Spring Anthology
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WHAT MRS. GORDON LEARNED by Corvus Mrs. Gordon was updating the First Lutheran Church roster when the phone rang. Agnes, Pastor Johnson’s wife, answered. It was the hospital, asking for the mother of Jason Gordon. By the end of it, Mrs. Gordon was so pale that Agnes, who was normally terrified of the other woman, was inclined to ask if there was anything she could do to help. “Yes,” said Mrs. Gordon, after a pause. “Please. I need to be at the hospital as soon as po
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George Shaw is taking a walk through the park when he realizes that he does not remember who he is anymore. Sometimes, it is difficult to feel sorrow when one cannot remember the past.
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hotel california by corvus Leonard wasn’t sure what was uglier, Mrs. Watson or the tea set. There was something about the jaw, the neck, the mascara on the verge of dripping onto the coffee table. On the other hand, Leonard had never seen such ugly teacups. All of it radiated from a teapot almost the size of his head. “It was in the cards,” said Mrs. Watson. “So you see, I knew you’d come to for the flat.” “Really?” Leonard said politely.
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THE THE LETTER CHEST by corvus He’s halfway past the sandbox when he can’t remember his way home. The loss is like a blow to the stomach. He slows down but keeps moving, squinting at the grass and sandbox that’s suddenly too bright. The memory is so close he can almost feel it. It hovers, breath-like, at the edge of his mind. The children in the sandbox distract him, but he is more bothered by the glances of their mothers. They must be wondering wh
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On a camping trip with friends, Matt discovers that his cabin's room isn't as empty as it seems.
