When Miss Strong caught me during our forty-five minute naptime reading a Superboy comic she took it from me and tore it apart without hesitation the way a tall skinny man I had seen on Ed Sullivan ripped in half a Southern Bell White pages with his hands and then held out both halves to
The water pitched and plunged, a foamy white swirling to a froth on the dark rocks drubbed smooth. You pulled your hand from mine and went to sit on a grassy ledge. Let’s not talk, you said and put your slender fingers to your lips. I watched a crow burst into flight and drank bourbon
(Sunday Night, fall 1961) “Work hard,” my uncle Harold says “and you’ll get somewhere, boy” and my father nods his head of black curly hair. With drinks cradled in their hands they sit side by side on two throne-shaped swivel chairs, staring at the small black screen set in the tan console, carved wood doors