closebits
Fires on Highway 192
after Neruda’s “Disasters” In Florida, it was raining ash because the fire demanded it. I had to point my car landward and hope the smoke would part, but it was a grey sea absorbing my body. Cabbage palms were annihilated. Even the Indian River steamed. Black stalks stank. The condominiums […]
A Poem in Which My Father is Not the Villain
I believe we commit errors we want no one to know about, that we wish we could bathe and be healed and sip whisky and be clean. And when the bitter drink hits my tongue—after that first sting— the first memory returns— my throat swollen nearly shut with a virus, […]
Mangos in Florida
–Tampa, 1942 If they liked mangos, we’d have none, mama says. We move yard to yard. We squat and bend to pick up fruit. She slides her full hand deep into the sack to keep the fruit from bruising. I see a curtain move in the house and wish for better clothes. My dress has […]
Deborah Ager Q&A on the pleasure and pain of writing
Deborah Ager talks about what she finds most pleasurable and the most painful aspects of writing.
Deborah Ager Q&A on her writing time
Deborah Ager talks about her writing time and writing rituals.
Correspondences
after Baudelaire Nature is a circus tent – its bones, two tall masts which commune in whispers of canvas and metal – and man is a clown passing before conspirators who watch keenly all the old familiar tricks. Look up: just as the acrobat’s bright weaves of ribbon furl, unfurl from a knot tied fast […]
After Hours
“Goodnight room. Goodnight moon. Goodnight cow jumping over the moon. Goodnight light, and the red balloon…” Goodnight Moon, Margaret Wise Brown There are no songs now. There are no classes. Only locked doors, up-ended chairs, a slow dance of hanging mobiles. The Fire Exit man perpetually flees the scene of a green crime, never making […]