ISSUES | spring 1985

“The Children Who Haven’t Stopped Moving”
“Releasing the Herd”
“That Not So Certain Feeling”
“News from the North”
“Diving the Shoals”
“Tales of a Four-Legged Land”

The door of the next hotel was open. A narrow carpet of light extended across the sidewalk, a sign Laurie took as a welcome. She said bonsoir and explained to the woman behind the desk that she wanted a single room.

There’s something in our makeup that is fascinated by the lawbreakers who carry things to extremes, by “extremity” in our attitudes toward life, and that’s what my books have come to represent, to me anyway: the treatment of characters in extreme conditions.

“I THINK IT’S the other way around,” the boy said. “I think if the quake hit now the bridge would collapse and the ramps would be left.” He looked at his sister with satisfaction.…    read more

A couple sit in a living room, drinking. The room is nicely furnished. There is art on the walls, books, etc. To the right rear of the stage there are…    read more

to Audrey Rugg  Two white whales, the father and the bolster That he hugs, rolling his sour stomach for relief Until the medicine becalms. Something he ate. High up in…    read more

Julian says he’s looking for something. Julian’s my father and we’ve been living here in Cabin #7 Habor Lights Motor Inn since early May.

“Meadow with Standing Crows”
“Imitation at Twilight”

All literature is scrap art, manufactured out of old sights, sounds, conversations, rumors, memories, visions, which are smelted down and recycled, or cut into patterns and stitched together, or simply relabeled like old bottles, retaining their original shapes but wearing new names and containing different potions.

A reunion was to be held on the Chuckney. Phil–Philip Sheridan he was named, the youngest son–was making all the arrangements, with the able assistance of his wife Willie, who, though married to him for two and a half years now, had never met all his family.

“Landscapes”
“Facing West”

Poetry is an attempt to give style to one’s self, and give style to one’s experience, to give style to the world. The world is inherently styleless. When you look out of the window now, it’s a particularly styleless scene we see out there, a street and some ordinary brick houses and a very, very gray day.

In the background, a few shacks & overturned carts And a gray sky holding the singular pallor of Lent. And here the crowd of onlookers, though a few of them…    read more

“Boys,” said the boss last Friday afternoon, “you two ought to be able to keep an eye on things.” He said he had business over in Auburn. “Personal. Won’t be back till after hours.”

“Sudden Clarity at the Artichoke Stands”
“Small Hours”

BEHIND A BARRED basement window a child’s small face. To any likely passerby he cries, “Hey, Uncle, please ” The passerby stops. “What do you want?” “Out. I want out.”…    read more

By the time the old captain was finished a third of us were dead or wounded, and the rest had been pushed so hard for so long that we were all nerves and suspicions, reduced to feeding our faces and hoping for one night’s uninterrupted sleep.

“Sparrow of Espanola”
“Virginia Evening”
“So long, Tuscaloosa”