A man made of scrap muscle & the steam engine’s imagination, white feathers flapping in each lobe for the skull’s migration, should the need arise. Sometimes drugged & duffled (by white men) into a cockpit bound for the next adventure. And liable to crush a fool’s face like newsprint; headlines of Hollywood blood and wincing. Half Stepin’ Fetchit, half John Henry. What were we, the skinny B-boys, to learn from you? How to hulk through Chicago in a hedgerow afro, an ox-grunt kicking dust behind the teeth; those eighteen glammering gold chains around the throat of pity, that fat hollow medallion like the sun on a leash —

ow to hulk through Chicago in a hedgerow afro,

What were we, the skinny B-boys, to learn from you?

What were we, the skinny B-boys, to learn from you

Sometimes drugged & duffled (by white men) into a cockpit bound for the next adventure

A man made of scrap muscle & the steam engine’s imagination, white feathers flapping in each lobe for the skull’s migration, should the need arise. Sometimes drugged & duffled (by white men) into a cockpit bound for the next adventure. And liable to crush a fool’s face like newsprint; headlines of Hollywood blood and wincing. Half Stepin’ Fetchit, half John Henry. What were we, the skinny B-boys, to learn from you? How to hulk through Chicago in a hedgerow afro, an ox-grunt kicking dust behind the teeth; those eighteen glammering gold chains around the throat of pity, that fat hollow medallion like the sun on a leash

A man made of scrap muscle

She wanted a little room for thinking: but she saw diapers steaming on the line, a doll slumped behind the door. So she lugged a chair behind the garage

he would open her eyes and think of the place that was hers for an hour-where she was nothing, pure nothing, in the middle of the day….

but she saw diapers steaming on the line, a doll slumped behind the door. So she lugged a chair behind the garage to sit out the children’s naps.

She wanted a little room for thinking:

She wanted a little room for thinking: but she saw diapers steaming on the line, a doll slumped behind the door. So she lugged a chair behind the garage to sit out the children’s naps. Sometimes there were things to watch- the pinched armor of a vanished cricket, a floating maple leaf. Other days she starred until she was assured when she closed her eyes she’d see only her own vivid blood. She had a hour at best before Liza appeared pouting from the top of the stairs. And just what was mother doing out back with the field mice? Why, building a palace. Later that night when Thomas rolled over and lurched into her, she would open her eyes and think of the place that was hers for an hour-where she was nothing, pure nothing, in the middle of the day….

She wanted a little room for thinking: but she saw diapers steaming on the line, a doll slumped behind the door. So she lugged a chair behind the garage to sit out the children’s naps.

DAYSTAR

If in some smothering dreams, you too could pace Behind the wagon that we flung him in, And watch the white eyes writhing in his face, His hanging face, like a devil’s sick of sin; If you could hear, at every jolt, the blood Come gargling from the froth-corrupted lungs, Obscene as cancer, bitter as the cud Of vile, incurable sores on innocent tongues, — My friend, you would not tell with such high zest To children ardent for some desperate glory,

In all my dreams before my helpless sight, He plunges at me, guttering, choking, drowning.

As under a green sea, I saw him drowning.  

And flound’ring like a man in fire or lime.

Gas! GAS! Quick, boys!

Men marched asleep. Many had lost their boots, But limped on, blood-shod. All went lame; all blind; Drunk with fatigue; deaf even to the hoots Of gas-shells dropping softly behind.  

Bent double, like old beggars under sacks, Knock-kneed, coughing like hags, we cursed through sludge, Till on the haunting flares we turned our backs, And towards our distant rest began to trudge. Men marched asleep. Many had lost their boots,

Some things never leave a person: scent of the hair of one you love, the texture of persimmons, in your palm, the ripe weight

He raises both hands to touch the cloth, asks, Which is this? This is persimmons, Father.

I ask how his eyes are, a stupid question. All gone, he answers.

I gave him the persimmons, swelled, heavy as sadness, and sweet as love.

cardinal sang, The sun, the sun.

My mother said every persimmon has a sun inside, something golden, glowing, warm as my face.

Fight was what I did when I was frightened, Fright was what I felt when I was fighting.

she is beautiful as the moon

Ripe ones are soft and brown-spotted.

In sixth grade Mrs. Walker slapped the back of my head and made me stand in the corne

persimmon

Her confession depressedhim, depressed him all the more when he thought of Mr. Das at the topof the path, Tina clinging to his shoulders, taking pictures of ancientmonastic cells~ut into the hills to show his students in America, unsus-pecting and unaware that one of his sons was not his own. Mr. Kapasifelt insulted that Mrs. Das should ask him to interpret her common, triv-ial little secret

After marrying so young she wasoverwhelmed by it all, having a child so quickly, and nursing, and warm-ing up bottles of milk and testing their temperature against her wristwhile Raj was at work, dressed in sweaters and corduroy pants, teachinghis students about rocks and dinosaurs. Raj never looked cross or bar-fled, or plump as she had become after the first bab

"We met when we were very. young," she said. She reached into herstraw bag in search of something, then pulled ont a packet of puffed rice."Want some?’’~

would fulfill his dream, of serving as an interpreterbetween nations

hough Mr. Kapasi had been to the temple countless times, itoccurred to him, as he, too, gazed at the topless women, that he hadnever seen his own wife fully naked. Even when they had made love shekept the panels of her blouse hooked together, the string of her petticoatknotted around her waist. He had never admired the backs of his wife’slegs the way he now admired those of Mrs. Das, walking as if for his ben-efit alone. He had, of course, seen plenty of bare fimbs before, belongingto the American and European ladies who took his tours. But Mrs. Daswas different. Unlike the other women, who had an interest only in thetemple, and kept their noses buried in a guidebook, or their eyes behindthe lens of a camera, Mrs. Das had taken an interest in him

To him it was a thankless occupation. He found nothing noble in inter-preting people’s maladies, assiduously translating the symptoms of somany swollen bones, countless cramps of bellies and bowels, spots onpeople’s palms that changed color, shape, or size.

Mr. and Mrs. Das behaved like an older brother and sister, notparents. It seemed that they were in charge of the children only for theday; it was hard to believe they were regularly responsible for anythingother than themselves

The little girt stuck out a hand. "Mine too. Mommy, do mine too.""Leave me alone," Mrs. Das said, blowing on her nail and turning herbody slightly. "You’re making me mess up.

Mr. Kapasi found it strange that Mr. Das should refer to his wifeby her first name when speaking to the little girl

was adry, bright Saturday, the mid-July heat tempered by a steady oceanbreeze,

Lahiri received a B.A. from Barnard College and applied unsuccess-fully to several graduate creative writing programs. She took a job as aresearch assistant and in her free time mornings and evenings in theoffice worked on her first book of short fiction. Soon she was acceptedinto Boston University’s creative writing program; finishing there, shetook a Ph.D. in Renaissance Studies and continued to ~vrite stories. Be-tween 1993 and t997 she won several fiction prizes. By 1997 she de-cided that she wished to work on fiction full-time, and was admittedinto the Fine Arts Work Center at Provincetown. In seven months shehad hired an agent, sold her first book, and published a story in TheNew Yorker. Her first book, Interpreter of Maladies (1999), a collectionof nine stories, one-thlrd of which had appeared in The New Yorker,won a Pulitzer Prize for fiction in 2000. Her first novel, The Namesake,appeared in 2003.

she iscritical of the superficial adoption of elements of either culture, andshe readily admits that she feels neither Indian nor American

Born in London and raised in Rhode Island by her Bengali parents,Jhumpa Lahiri (b. 1967

Lieutenant Jimmy Cross reminded himselfthat his obligation was not to be loved but to lead

On the morning after Ted Lavender died, First LieutenantJimmy Cross crouched at the bottom of his foxhole and burnedMartha's letters. Then he burned the two photographs

Whensomeone died, it wasn't quite dying, because in a curious way itseemed scripted, and because they had their lines mostlymemorized, irony mixed with tragedy, and because they calledit by other names, as if to encyst and destroy the reality ofdeath itself

e felt shame. He hated himself. He had loved Martha morethan his men, and as a consequence Lavender was now dead,

He was just a kid at war, in love. He was twenty-four years old. He couldn't help it.

Imagination was a killer.

as a token of her truest feelings forhim.

Henry Dobbinscarried the M-60, which weighed 23 pounds unloaded, butwhich was almost always loaded. In addition, Dobbins carriedbetween 10 and 15 pounds of ammunition draped in beltsacross his chest and shoulders

Jimmy Cross humped his love for Martha up the hills andthrough the swamps

They were signed Love,Martha, but Lieutenant Cross understood that Love was only away of signing

Among the necessities or near-necessities were P-38can openers, pocket knives, heat tabs, wristwatches, dog tags,mosquito repellent, chewing gum, candy, cigarettes, salttablets, packets of Kool-Aid, lighters, matches, sewing kits,Military Payment Certificates, C rations, and two or threecanteens of water.

First Lieutenant Jimmy Cross carried letters from a girlnamed Martha

All I know about music is that not many people ever really hear it. And even then, on the rare occasions when something opens within, and the music enters, what we mainly hear, or hear corroborated, are personal, private, vanishing evocations. But the man who creates the music is hearing something else, is dealing with the roar rising from the void and imposing order on it as it hits the air. What is evoked in him, then, is of another order, more terrible because it has no words, and triumphant, too, for that same reason. And his triumph, when he triumphs, is ours.

It's terrible sometimes, inside," he said, "that's what's the trouble. You walk these streets, black and funky and cold, and there's not really a living ass to talk to, and there's nothing shaking, and there's no way of getting it out- that storm inside. You can't talk it and you can't make love with it, and when you finally try to get with it and play it, you realize nobody's listening. So you've got to listen. You got to find a way to listen."

her voice reminded me for a minute of what heroin feels like sometimes-when it's in your veins.

e went as far as the navy would carry him. He finally sent me a postcard from some place in Greece and that was the first I knew that Sonny was still alive. I didn't see him any more until we were both back in New York and the war had long been over

Well, the word had never before sounded as heavy, as real, as it sounded that afternoon in Sonny's mouth. I just looked at him and I was probably frowning a real frown by this time

killing streets

You don't know how much I needed to hear from you. I wanted to write you many a time but I dug how much I must have hurt you and so I didn't write. But now I feel like a man who's been trying to climb up out of some deep, real deep and funky hole and just saw the sun up there, outside. I got to get outside

And I didn't write Sonny or send him anything for a long time. When I finally did, it was just after my little girl died,

It kept melting, sending trickles of ice water all up and down my veins, but it never got less