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And That Night
- Wesleyan University Press
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And That Night A photo is taken of the family enjoying the sunshine and that night someone sneaks up from behind in your flat as you sit reading the papers and clobbers you. Younever find out why or who, youjust lean back and die. The sunshine is gone too, the photograph gets into the news. You bring up a family in three small rooms, this crazy man comes along to finish it off. Play Again (Late in 1962 New York newspapers reported the story of a nine-yearold child being raped on a roof, and hurled twenty stories to the ground.) I draw near to the roof's edge and seek someone to lift and hurl me out into vacant air. I want to turn over and over rapidly in my plunge, my mouth open to scream but air rushing upwards jams my throat. I am seeking the peace I never once gave up on and this is the final way to find it. The living share me among them. They taste me on the ground, they taste me in the air descending. They taste me screaming, nine years old. I have playmates 55 ...