21 June, 2023
It was the night of the Worm Moon,
low and full in the March sky, though
we couldn’t see it, not under
our wool blanket of clouds. You
were standing at the counter cutting
vegetables when I offered you two
paper cranes — folded triangles
21 June, 2023
The way my mother tells it,
I ran away. She didn’t shove me
out the front door at sixteen.
Afterwards, she remembers my little sister
possessed by a poisonous anger
but has no recollection of dragging her
through the house by her hair.
The history of our family was oral,
repeated to herself
in the splotched bathroom mirror,
where everything came out backwards.
Backwards everything came out
of that mirror, where she repeated
our family history, with no recollection
of dragging my sister through the house
by her hair, of her own poisonous anger, or me
at sixteen, pleading at our front door.
She didn’t shove me.
I ran away.
21 June, 2023
Sword in the bonestone. Blade rhumb lining the tongue. I
was really sick but didn’t know it. One by one the
acupuncturist tlcks out the rostrum-like pins—forehead
cheeks chin—save for the splinter embedded in the
meridian of my soft spot, crown of the governing vessel.
Monster irresistible like the rhinoceros. Spiny spiky anteater.
Hedgehog cousin. Half-squamate, half-woman dwelling in a
cave no outside world’s iron age pierces. When I press the
antenna hidden in my skull the mind’s long lists of past due
& to do & will it so. When I press harder that axis of a planet
yet discovered: blood temples; glass blowing nerve hiss; salt
of tinnitus. Harder still—a jet shatters the sound barrier of
retrograde amnesia, a bolt of lightning fernseeds dream into
channels. Like a finger in the dam or a cork in the socket,
it’s the plucking out of the stoppering—not the arrow
spearing the heart—which kills you
21 June, 2023
When the sea breeze makes its way inland
through all of the cranes & concrete forms
of downtown, past the new floor-to-ceiling
windows, & in amongst the suburbs’ shadow
box fences, I watch the palm fronds behind
my computer monitor alternate between
a mild daze-like sway & orgasmic tremble.
Sometimes I fantasize about what a release
21 June, 2023
Rub her tiny protruded belly in circles
and the sin will crawl out, fill a room
like prayer. Her first word is mine.
Do not let her use your heart
as a tool. You cannot take body
from her. You must keep her
alive, let her fatten up like a little disaster.
Under her coiled ribs beats a new tender
plan. If you bend deep enough
21 June, 2023
What lives in the laboratory of the body
was cradled in someone’s hand
Look, they said and the thing
wet, translucent, glowing,
pulsed like the inside of a firefly
essential inner matter, vital, alive
in someone’s hand in a hallway
21 June, 2023
The [ ] you threw away
climbs out of the trash,
metaphor or not,
crawls across
the kitchen floor,
makes its way outside,
boards a bus,
finds a pawn shop,
21 June, 2023
The room is your own, but it is still bare.
It has to be furnished; it has to be decorated; it has to be shared.
-Virginia Woolf
The day after we take possession of the house,
I find two bats mummified in the basement,
a mother and, perhaps, her child. They live
in our dustpan for a week before I decide
to carry them outside. Meanwhile,
we ferry furniture up stairways and through
narrow doors until I feel I have mastered
the maneuverings of each four-legged
wooden beast—dining table, sofa, armchair,
desk. There are cobwebs on every stair.
The spiders spin faster than me here
and I have been hurrying so long.
I sink anchors into the walls. My partner
buys a fly swatter, chases the insects
around the house. I buy knives
with rosewood handles and blades honed
in the country where my grandfather
was born. I have been building bookshelves
in our highest room, fitting dowels
into each pre-drilled hole. I assemble them
on their backs, laid down, then raise them
their weight tipping lighter, then level,
as they tower over me. On my front porch,
a great grey dame of a spider, quite rotund,
has spun her corner web. She sits at its center,
her hourglass abdomen turned
toward our door. I watch as moths, mosquitoes,
other wings catch in her careful architecture.
She never leaves them long, no struggle lest
their dying break her fragile home.
She kills them quick, then carries them away.
Just today, checking the mail, I saw that her web
was gone. I cannot know if it was the mailman
who swatted the strands aside, or a swallow,
or some other bird that passed through,
or if it was she herself who made another plan,
unstrung each filament and let them fall
leaving only an isosceles frame—three guy-lines
and somewhere, perhaps, in a corner out of sight
the remains of her meals, a tidy pile of wings.
21 June, 2023
FADE IN:
INT. APARTMENT – DAY
A young woman who has already lived a difficult life, PHOEBE sits on one of two stools at the lounging counter separating her small galley kitchen from the main room of the apartment. There is a plastic cup in front of her along with a fifth of vodka. The counter is cluttered with spice jars, olive oil bottles, dirty dishes, an open box of children’s cereal, mac-n-cheese boxes, children’s toys, and other kitchen odds and ends. The stove has pots on it. The sink is full of dishes. To the side, a small buffet holds the type of ceramics that children make as gifts, along with various bottles of liquor and shot glasses. A string of white Christmas lights hangs along the walls.
The door of the apartment is plain. The security chain is unlatched. Someone knocks. PHOEBE goes to the door and peers through the peephole.
PHOEBE
Who is it?
VI (O.S.)
Me.
PHOEBE sets the security chain then opens the door.
VI leans against the opposite wall so that he is facing PHOEBE as she looks through the partially opened door. VI exudes violence without any explicit threat. He leans in towards the door. One of his hands is on the wall next to the door and another hand is on the door. Only half his face is visible. A small mirror on the wall next to the door shows only half of PHOEBE’s face.
PHOEBE
Why you here?
VI
Early release.
21 June, 2023
A Ten-Minute Comedy
Characters
Nic, Any Age or Gender
Olive, 40’s – 70’s, Female
Setting: The Audience, Right Before the Curtain Goes Up
“I pray you.”
~ William Shakespeare
(A theater. NIC is seated in the audience. OLIVE approaches NIC.
OLIVE seems hesitant. She looks around, and then –cautiously– sits
next to NIC. NIC notices her. They smile at her. OLIVE smiles back, but
it’s a weary smile. NIC goes back to looking at their program. A moment
passes. OLIVE can’t take it anymore.)
OLIVE
Is this part of the play?
(A beat. NIC turns to OLIVE.)
NIC
I’m sorry?
OLIVE
This. Is this part of the play?
(A moment.)
NIC
I don’t…understand the question?
OLIVE
Oh. Sorry. I get so nervous these days.
NIC
Nervous about what?
OLIVE
Well, theater is so different now. You go to see a play and they want you to walk through a maze or watch somebody make risotto, and then you have to eat the risotto, and it’s not seasoned properly. It used to be, you would walk in, take your seat, watch a play, and go home. Now, they want you to be afraid all the time.
NIC
Oh, you mean like immersive theater?
OLIVE
No, I’m talking about when the theater is all around you.
NIC
That’s–Right.
OLIVE
I like to ask ahead of time so I know what I’m getting myself into, but I forgot to call the box office, so now I’m nervous.
NIC
This isn’t immersive. It’s just a touring production of The Tempest.
OLIVE
Do you think they’ll come into the audience?
NIC
Uh. I’m not sure.
OLIVE
One time they came into the audience. They grabbed the woman next to me. Brought her up onstage. Never brought her back down.
NIC
She was probably a plant.
OLIVE
No, she was human. She had a bracelet on.
NIC
I mean, she was probably a part of the show.
OLIVE
She was when they brought her up onstage. They made her put on a clown nose and do jumping jacks. I would have died. Can you imagine? Jumping jacks? In front of other people? I’d sooner make love to my husband in front of his golfing buddies. Do you have any idea what I look like jumping up and down? I’ll spare you the image.
(A beat.)
NIC
That sounds–Yeah.
OLIVE
So I hope this is just a nice show without any of that nonsense.
NIC
I think it will be. These people are British. They never do anything fun.
OLIVE
British Shakespeare. God, I hope I can understand it.
NIC
You’ll be fine.
OLIVE
I wonder why they didn’t do the American version.
NIC
Well, it’s–a mystery, I guess.
OLIVE
My cousin John was in a Shakespeare play once. The one about the witch? The witches?
NIC
Oh, you mean–
OLIVE
Hamlet.
NIC
There aren’t any witches in Hamlet.
OLIVE
No, the mother was a witch.
NIC
Are you speaking figuratively or–?
OLIVE
No, she had on a long, black dress.
(A beat.)
That means she’s a witch.
NIC
Well, that’s–open to interpretation, I guess.
OLIVE
My cousin played the guy in the hole.
NIC
You mean the Gravedigger?
OLIVE
Yes.
NIC
Gotcha.
OLIVE
They couldn’t afford a real hole, because it was a small theater, so they painted a hole on the back wall and he stood in front of it.
NIC
Very creative.
OLIVE
Amazing how these people’s minds work. I never think of things like that.
NIC
Well, how often do you need to communicate to someone that you’re in a hole?
OLIVE
I’m never in a hole. I don’t like being underground.
NIC
Understandable.
OLIVE
I had a bad experience with a submarine once.
NIC
That sounds–Okay.
OLIVE
I’m Olive.
NIC
Nic.
OLIVE
You always come to the theater alone?
NIC
I prefer it, actually.
OLIVE
Why is that?
NIC
Because then you don’t have to talk to anybody.
(OLIVE laughs.)
OLIVE
You’re absolutely right. That’s why I don’t bring my husband.
NIC
How long have you been married?
OLIVE
Too long.
NIC
Well.
(A beat.)
OLIVE
You’re sure this isn’t part of the play?
NIC
I’m sure.
OLIVE
Because if you’re an actor, you’re very good.
NIC
I’m not an actor.
OLIVE
I respect what actors do. The arts are important.
NIC
Yes, they are, but–
OLIVE
You know what I bought my daughter in third grade? A ukulele.
(A beat.)
It’s good for kids.
NIC
Ukuleles?
OLIVE
Music.
NIC
Well. Yes.
OLIVE
She had no talent for it. Poor thing. She tried though.
NIC
That’s what’s important.
OLIVE
Is there music in this?
NIC
The play?
OLIVE
Yeah.
NIC
There probably will be. It’s Shakespeare, so–
OLIVE
They’re always putting music in plays where there isn’t supposed to be music. I don’t mind musicals, but if I’m seeing a play, I’m seeing a play. If I want to see a musical, I’ll see a musical. Most of these plays are long enough without anything extra.
NIC
That’s–Yeah.
(A beat.)
OLIVE
Listen, if you’re in the play–
NIC
Olive.
OLIVE
–I don’t mind, but just please don’t bring me up onstage. My eye shadow is a mess today. I’ll be mortified.
NIC
I’m not in the play.
OLIVE
But it’s fine if you are. I know if you are, you can’t say you are. It’s like the FBI, right? You have to keep it a secret.
NIC
I’m not in the play.
OLIVE
I’m very good at keeping secrets. My sister has been sleeping around on my brother-in-law for years, and I’ve never told a soul.
NIC
Good for you.
OLIVE
So if you’re in the play–
NIC
I’m not the play.
OLIVE
I’m just saying, if you are, it’ll be between you and me.
NIC
I–Thank you. I appreciate that.
(A beat. BOTH look at their programs.)
OLIVE
I just don’t know how you learn all those lines.
NIC
I don’t have any lines.
OLIVE
So it’s not a speaking part?
NIC
No, I–
OLIVE
I’m sure you were very good at the audition, and they just had a lot of people to choose from.
NIC
I never auditioned.
OLIVE
Sleeping with the director, huh? Just like my sister.
NIC
I’m not an actor.
OLIVE
You’re right. I’m sorry. A thespian.
NIC
I promise you, Olive, I am not in the play.
OLIVE
But if you were in the play, that’s exactly what you would say.
NIC
At this point, I think I would just confess. You’ve a very good interrogator.
OLIVE
It’s from all those years I spent in the BBC.
NIC
You mean MI6?
OLIVE
Who told you about M16?
NIC
You don’t even have a British accent.
OLIVE
I don’t believe in accents.
NIC
That’s–fine.
OLIVE
You know who uses accents?
NIC/OLIVE
Your sister? / My sister.
OLIVE
She talks like a Southern debutante. The woman’s never been below the Mason Dixon line. A total phony.
NIC
Maybe she’s been an actress this whole time?
(A moment.)
OLIVE
You know what? I never thought of that.
NIC
I was just–
OLIVE
That would make sense. These plays they do now? They go on and on. I wouldn’t be surprised if my whole life was a play.
NIC
Like The Truman Show?
OLIVE
Or Kennedy. Or Roosevelt. I wouldn’t say it’s just like Truman.
NIC
You–
OLIVE
But politics is theater, yes, that’s very astute of you to say.
NIC
We should probably focus on the show.
OLIVE
It hasn’t started yet.
NIC
No, but–
OLIVE
Or has it started? Is that what you’re trying to communicate to me?
NIC
No, I’m really just trying to, uh, end the conversation.
OLIVE
Trying to get in the right headspace before you do one of your little monologues, huh?
NIC
Sure, if that’s what you want to–Sure.
OLIVE
I get the same way right before I do yoga.
NIC
Great. So you understand?
OLIVE
I understand completely.
(The LIGHTS start to dim.)
I hope it’s not too long. Do you know how long it is?
NIC
I don’t.
OLIVE
Does it say in the program?
NIC
No, it–
OLIVE
I think the runtime is right under–
(OLIVE stands up.)
My name!
NIC
What–is happening?
OLIVE
(With a British accent.)
You have entered the world of the play, dear audience member!
NIC
Oh god, no.
OLIVE
Please–
NIC
No.
OLIVE
If you would–
NIC
No, no, no.
OLIVE
Join me onstage!
(SOUND OF AUDIENCE APPLAUSE.)
NIC
I should have gone to the movies.
End of Play