|
ALEXANDRA DAVID-NEEL
by Michael Lee Johnson She edits her life from a room made dark against a desert dropping summer sun. A daring traveling Parisian adventurer, ultimate princess turning toad with age— snow drops of white in her hair, tiny fingers thumb joints osteoarthritis she corrects proofs at 100, pours whiskey, pours over what she wrote scribbles notes directed to the future, applies for a new passport. With this amount of macular degeneration, near, monster of writers' approaches, she wears no spectacles. Her mind teeters between Himalayas, distant Gobi Desert. Running reason through her head for a living, yet dancing with the youthful world of Cinderella, she plunges deeper near death into Tibetan mysticism, trekking across snow covered mountains to Lhasa, Tibet. Nighttime rest, sleepy face, peeking out that window crack into the nest, those quiet villages below tasting a reality beyond her years. |
LOOKING THROUGH LOVE 1 by Christian DeLaO |
|
THE WOMAN IN A NEGLIGEE
wears an elegant wardrobe, decollete, with a thigh-high split. I'm almost 17, making a delivery during the war for a local drug store. She pays me with a big fat tip, invites me in for a yummy taste of blueberry pie she's just baked. She tells me her back is in pain— do I have time to give her a back rub? Her stereo is ablaze with the vibrato of Edith Piaf while she offers me a sip of homemade wine, brewed by her husband before he left her. I sit on her sofa and wonder: Is this the fantasy I've had before on my delivery route? it can't really be true. Are we both phantoms in a mutual dream? We both seem to savor the mystery of the perfect moment—no dialogue necessary. My body and soul is willing in more ways than I care to say. But it's the very best blueberry pie that I've ever tasted, before or since. —by Milton P. Ehrlich |
LOOKING THROUGH LOVE 2 by Christian DeLaO |
|
EMILY AS 1922
by Darren C. Demaree All of the pictures I keep of Emily are black & white & she is in a bathtub full of champagne. This only happened once. I take pictures of her all the time. I throw away so many memories of her. I remember her needless- ly naked & covered in a drink I can no longer taste. It's ruinous & perfect. |
1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6
home | Table of Contents | archive