A Cento-Elegy-Memoir-Mash-up on the Occasion of Sam Shepard’s Death and a Rereading of Buried Child and Fool for Love
Rent from DeepDyve- A Cento-Elegy-Memoir-Mash-up on the Occasion of Sam Shepard’s Death and a Rereading of Buried Child and Fool for Love
The words I overuse are all adverbs.sam shepardSam Shepard. Dead. Yesterday. Cowboy boots, als, fingernails and all, everlastingly not for me.
I’m spinning the worn audiotape around in my head. Sam’s sister, Sandy’s singing all melancholic, Fool for Love.
Bill Bowen’s pointing his perpetually stiff dick at me. My One Act, him, one actor, flawlessly playing himself, for the crowd amiably waiting—equity waiver, palpably dark stage, and my wet pussy eternally dreaming Sam.
1. Pain is pain. Suffering is a different matter. You didn’t stay home with me. I thought it was going to be turkey dinners and apple pie.
2. It’s different for a woman. Especially in the rain.
3. Everything running down hill. We just end up dead. Blow kisses in the moonlight . [End Page 103]
4. I’ve never been two ways about you. I’ve either loved you or not loved you.
5. We can’t not believe in something. We can’t stop believing.
6. Faith and hope. You’re all alike you hopers. If it’s not God then it’s a man. If it’s not a man then it’s a woman. If it’s not a woman then it’s the land or the future.
7. It’s different for a woman. It was the same love, just got split in two.
8. You can’t force a thing to grow. You just gotta wait till it pops up out of the ground.
9. This is me. Right here. This is it the whole shootin’ match, sittin’ right in front of you.
10. It’s different for a woman— bones wrapped in a muddy, rotten cloth.
11. The guy picks the movie. The guy’s always supposed to pick the movie. [End Page 104]
Linda Neal studied literature at Pomona College, where she earned a bachelor of arts in linguistics and a master’s degree in clinical psychology. She has been a marriage and family therapist for years. Her award-winning poems and essays have appeared in numerous journals, including Lummox, ONTHEBUS, Crack the Spine, Santa Fe Review, Beechers, and SLAB. She is the author of the poetry collection Dodge and Burn (Bambaz Press). She is currently enrolled in Pacific University’s mfa program in poetry.
