Steve Bradbury

After the Paris Bombings

I lent my Daily Missal, which had been published before they dropped the Latin, to Robin. Though she had been raised a Catholic in an Irish-Italian suburb of Boston in the sixties, had even been a “choir boy” until she saw the light, so to speak, it could have been the Koran for all she knew, and I had to agree. I was as reluctant to take it back as she was to keep it, for the relentless litany of martyrdoms and persecutions reminded us a little too much of CNN. And of something Joe Brainard once said on the problem of history: it seems like every day is the anniversary of something awful.

Author: Steve Bradbury

Steve Bradbury’s translation of Hsia Yü’s Salsa (Zephyr Press 2014) and Ye Mimi’s His Days Go By the Way Her Years (Anomalous Press, 2013) were both shortlisted for the Lucien Stryk Asian Translation Prize. He lives in Ft. White, Florida.

Plume: Issue #71 June 2017