4

Had to change trains twice to get home and I was reading Cranford by Elizabeth Gaskell, great, familiar, female, underrated. On the second train I glanced up when somebody laughed and saw a short, beautiful African man gazing longingly at me. It was so startling. I hurried back to Cranford, the village where the old […]

29

Caring for Dad is painful. I love him, naturally, and now he’s very frail and unwell; so it’s wrung from me like dark water out of soaked wood. But Dad tormented me with minor sexual attentions during my pubescence and twenties, and into my adulthood; he would never listen when I said No and always […]

37

For four weeks now, this terrible grief. It takes up residence in my throat, is heavy, slides into the sweet solar plexus where self-belief resides. Crushes back my breathing. Gives me the tired. It makes bed seem a dire, unavoidable residence, where I will spend my days: all of them. Though I enjoy so much […]