Activity

In the Botanic Gardens A and I lie on two blankets that he’s spread on the Oak Lawn and read The Europeans aloud. The bliss of being read to. The speckled shade, small children shouting and running across the grass. We take it in turns, chapter by chapter. The long sentences tax our powers of forwa…

I am a forty-three-year-old woman, a mother, healthy, reasonable-looking; I am in my own city; I am able to make a living; I am sometimes sad or frightened, and recently I have been hurt; but I am also learning to examine myself and my crimes less defensively; the Mighty Force has not lately come t…

The gist of it is, I guess, that I wasn’t vulnerable, or feminine. F says that I didn’t need him enough, that I barged straight through him. I have to accept this in silence. Because it is true.

I told the Jungian how I hated and feared the kind of privilege claimed by beautiful women.

‘And how have you claimed attention, Helen?’

I did not like being asked this question.

‘Sex. Using my brains.’

A poem translated from the Arabic called Homesickness. Words to the effect of ‘Once again you take out your knife and stab me’, and then this: ‘Nobody knows whether I am dancing or staggering.’

‘There is something between me and her.’

‘Since when?’

‘Two weeks.’

I keep walking but…