I Do Feel That If You Can

The Other Day I Was Playing Scrabble. I Saw That I Could Close The Space In D-e- -y. I Had An N And An F. Which Do You Think I Chose? What Was The Word I Made?

When My Mother Died, My Father's Early Widowhood Gave Him Social Cachet He Would Not Have Had If They Had Divorced. He Was A Bigger Catch For The Sorrow Attached.

We Can Only Die In The Future, I Thought; Right Now We Are Always Alive.

I Know When A Story Is Finished When There Is Not A Single Thing More I Can Think To Do To It. And Since I Know At The Start What The Last Line Will Be, I Know When I've Reached That Point As Logically As I Can That It's Finished. As For The Rewriting-it's Not Foolproof, Of Course, But If You're Honest About Having Thought Of Every Possibility And You Still Come Back To What You Have, What More Can You Do?

I Think Of The Chimp, The One With The Talking Hands. In The Course Of The Experiment, That Chimp Had A Baby. Imagine How Her Trainers Must Have Thrilled When The Mother, Without Prompting, Began To Sign Her Newborn. Baby, Drink Milk. Baby, Play Ball. And When The Baby Died, The Mother Stood Over The Body, Her Wrinkled Hands Moving With Animal Grace, Forming Again And Again The Words: Baby, Come Hug, Baby Come Hug, Fluent Now In The Language Of Grief.