University of Northern Iowa

Spiders. Wild Rye.Author(s): Oliver RiceSource: The North American Review, Vol. 289, No. 5 (Sep. - Oct., 2004), p. 33Published by: University of Northern IowaStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/25127229 .

Accessed: 17/06/2014 03:49

Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at .http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp

.JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range ofcontent in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new formsof scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact support@jstor.org.

.

University of Northern Iowa is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to The NorthAmerican Review.

http://www.jstor.org

This content downloaded from 185.44.79.99 on Tue, 17 Jun 2014 03:49:07 AMAll use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

NAR

ELISABETH MURAWSKI

Ode to Blanche DuBois

Me and Blanche

slink center stage

through a curtain of beads.

We hike up our gowns and shine

like tinsel from tossed out

Christmas trees.

In rooms smudged with pink neon light

we lose our zero selves

in artful beaux.

Each morning, we tiptoe from the cold.

We sing in the tub.

We slip into silk kimonos

and smoke. Stars

we didn't have to make up

string us

along. We hold on tight to the string.

OLIVER RICE

Spiders. Wild Rye.

It has rained in the night. The early

sun glints

on the sycamore.

He stands with his coffee at the kitchen window,

naming the stillness, the westward slope,

blackbirds, haze along the river, red leaves of the sumac falling, the moles, the gourds at work,

saying, I will be human, I will be human. It is no small thing.

SUSANNE KORT

Sodality

They almost always

kept their distance, briskly aproned, irons in their hand, or

otherwise set off: circle pins, slingback pumps, their blatantly sanguineous

vulvas, 8c issue to prove it: my Mother's friends, that motley bunch

of brown-shouldered golfers & volunteer catechists almost to a man

appropriate, restrained, in commerce

with someone like me: three-quarters bone, 8c shins,

8c elbows fighting free

of the Girl Scouts: secret 8c passionate mistress of

George Gordon, Lord Byron, who dwelt in my bedroom, clandestine behind his one thin sheet of onionskin: Oh to be Augusta

for just one day, or failing that Lady Caroline

Lamb.

Run into, post-canasta, on the way out Mother's door

our conversations were Drene shampoo and squeaky clean; I guess they guessed what there was was

enough 8c more, although

there were a few of them, the luscious louchest ones,

the sort of part-time mommies you divined

from the debraille glint in their hair or a certain way, with one or two of them,

of outright sashaying; 8c staring as if

out of the blue they were taking you in with a certain favonian shock of recognition.

September-October 2004 NORTH AMERICAN REVIEW 33

This content downloaded from 185.44.79.99 on Tue, 17 Jun 2014 03:49:07 AMAll use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions