From Gustave Roud’s Air of Solitude
From Gustave Roud’s Air of Solitude Translated by Sean T. Reynolds and Alexander Dickow Difference All that’s left of the signpost is a mute shaft, but I readily recognized it, this vast crossroads that opened at the edge of the village. One of the roads descended between the houses toward a little low-lying inn: the Star Café. I remember. At
The Sailor’s Love Song and Irish Whiskey
The Sailor’s Love Song When I was young I burned to be a sailor on a chancy sea where I could handle any fight with fist or kiss or clever flight free from church and state decree But when the song seeped out of me I bought the job and family and town I thought a gutless blight when
Kabuki
A widow in Mississippi kept them in glass cases, the Japanese dolls her late husband shipped home from the war, and the parlor furniture was draped in sheets removed only for guests. I was there to speak of a death, her daughter, in a wilderness “mishap” just two weeks before. The episode was still a mystery, the girl’s body lost.
