WEBVTT

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Thank you, Aisha.

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Well, I do have
tremendous gratitude.

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I have gratitude for the
chance to work with Aisha,

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and I think that her writing
influenced my writing probably

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more even than mine
influenced hers.

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I mean, I just think that it was
wonderful to work with Aisha.

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And there are several other
people here in the audience

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that I would like
to thank, and that's

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Susan Roberts who's been a
really good friend of mine

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for years and a good reader.

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And Karen Brennan and
Barbara Cully above all

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who was the person who told
me that this collection

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of "Little Fragments"
might actually be a book.

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If it hadn't been
for Barbara, I don't

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think I would have known that.

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I was just writing
these little things.

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So thank you all, and thank
you to the Poetry Center

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for having me read.

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This is a really
wonderful honor to be

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able to read in this
space that I love so much.

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"Anthropologies" is
really about memory.

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And when I started writing it,
I was taking care of my mother.

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And I realized that she--

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Whenever one thing was
happening in the room,

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several other things were
happening in her mind.

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In other words, there were
all these different layers

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of time in that one room.

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And so when I started writing
it, that was kind of my goal,

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was just to capture moments that
had all these different layers

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of time so.

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I'm going to read a little
bit from that first section.

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One--

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"My mother and I are
sitting in the small dining

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room of her townhouse.

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We are sitting at the table
she's had since I was a girl,

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but I am nearly 50.

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The table is warm
in the sunlight.

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The wood, a dark green.

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She'd found it in
an old junk shop

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and asked the man
to refinish it.

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The same junk shop where she
found her baby grand piano,

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also in pieces, also in need
of repair and refinishing.

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Now, the piano sits
in the living room

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beneath a large
triangular windows,

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that if you were ever
to open the curtains,

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look out on the tea
of a golf course.

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She no longer plays golf, she
no longer plays the piano,

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she no longer paints
Chinese watercolors

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or plays bridge
with her friends.

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Most weeks, I am the
only one who visits.

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Most nights, the
only one who calls.

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She must be lonely, I think.

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But she says she isn't.

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With her halo of white hair,
she is still beautiful.

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It's her brown eyes
maybe, her bone structure.

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The classical symmetry
of her features.

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The oxygen machine
hums in the background.

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The small interior
courtyard behind her

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is full of light and green
plants, most of them soak.

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She picks up crumbs of toast
from the table with her finger,

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and dusts them onto her plate.

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She wants to tell
me her stories,

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and every time I come to bring
her groceries or make her soup

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or take her to see a
doctor, she revises them.

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She has to get them just right.

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She wants me--
she wants someone,

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it doesn't have to be me.

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She wants someone to
know her before she dies,

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this is my theory.

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When we were young, she
never told these stories.

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Even 10 years ago,
she wasn't ready.

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My brother would
ask when he visited

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to hear about his father.

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'Oh.' She'd say getting
up from the table.

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'What is there to tell?

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We were married for so short
a time, only five years.'

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On Wednesdays and Sundays,
I type her stories

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into my laptop.

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It takes her a while
sometimes to get started,

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I have to prompt her.

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'Tell me the one about
the dinner party,

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when Scotty pretended he was
a waiter and gave your bill

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to the navy guys.'

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She laughs, remembering
maybe the dress

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she was wearing that night.

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Cream colored with fuchsia and
dark green designs, shoulder

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pads, the silky fabric
knotted between her breasts.

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She shakes her head.

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When she tried to flick
her cigarette butt out

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over the balcony, it hit
Scotty's commanding officer

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in the forehead.

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What a faux pas.

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But she is amused by this
younger self, I can tell.

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The oxygen machine makes
little puffing sounds,

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I change it to
the other setting.

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Her color is not so good
today, she seems out of breath.

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And so I read to her something
she dictated the time before.

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'Oh!' She says.

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'Just say my sister.

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Don't put her name,
don't put Dorothy.

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Or-- Oh!

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We can't say the officer's name,
it might be a military secret!'

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'His name?' 'You know, that
he was there on Saipan before

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Korea.'

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When I give her the
drafts for her approval,

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she draws thick black lines
through certain phrases

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and details.

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Her life looks like a communique
from the front or from prison."