The Origin of Sausage
i. The origin of sausage is the boar. Spices are added because it’s a bad cut of meat, all tough and bland. I refused to eat it when I learned its source through a 4-H project—one that had me tour a meat packing plant as an adolescent. ii. For as long as I live I’ll...
Private Bath
For example, when we were at that chic old B&B in Kensington, I had to wrap my slippery thin traveling robe around me and head down the hall past the half-dozen other rooms, hoping to God no one was in the bathroom during my morning window of personal opportunity. If we happened not to leave...
Heat
All hell broke loose in my first French class when our teacher tried to explain the linguistic differences between those who measured the temperature in Fahrenheit and those who measured it in Centigrade. “When the mercury rises,” Madame C. told us, “Americans say ‘It is hot’–but those who speak romance languages say ‘It makes heat.’”...
The Electrodynamics of Loving Old Men
So you want to know why I love old men. You already know the story: The first man I ever loved was my grandfather Poppy, and I loved all six-foot-two-inches of his cigarette-smoking, car-fixing, meat-and-potatoes-eating, cancer-riddled manliness, right up until the day we all watched him die. I was only ten at the time, but...
750 Words About Cancer
The ceiling creaks with every step. My family moves in clandestine patterns while I type at the computer in my red-room below. The room is red for a reason, not just because I enjoy the color, though I do. The red is for passion, the kind of passion that can take a person to the...
An Essay On Tango Composed While Listening to Adriana Varela
I swear to you, I heard someone on Avenida Santa Fé shout my name, but I ignored it. Who knew me in this city anyway? I’d come here trying to forget the woman whom I’d made love with every night for three weeks – in another August, in another city whose once-in-a-lifetime dog-licking summer stewed...
Teaching Errors
I lean over Todd’s desk. His head is down, eyes concentrating on the tangle of words he’s produced. I read silently along with him, parsing out scribble and scratches. As my bitten fingernail zigzags over his sentences, I realize that even my fingers don’t match my image of a fourth grade teacher, who should be...
Circling
Daffiama, Ghana I.There was a woman who died while I was in Daffiama; she was young and eight months pregnant. I didn’t go to the funeral, but those who did said you could see the baby circling around inside of her, like a hand moving under a sheet. Later I felt bad that I hadn’t...
Confession
My English teacher’s daughter had chestnut hair and bold eyes and what the boys in our class boisterously called breeder hips. My English teacher’s daughter was one year younger than me, but seduced me in that clever way Catholic girls have of making you think it was all your fault. Being Catholic, too, I eagerly...
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