Sinister Wisdom 34
Spring 1988
Editor and Publisher: ElanaDykewomon

Editorial readers and advisors: Ariban, Barbara Ruth, Bess Kier, Betty
Dudley, Cath Thompson, Dolphin Zelda Waletsky, Gloria Anzaldua, Grace
Harwood, Heidi Henken, Jasmine Marah, Lisa Carlin, Louise Rafkin, Naja
Sorelia, Rose Romano, Susan Jill Kahn, Valerie Stoehr
Contributing Editors: Gloria Anzaldua, Irena Klepfisz, Melanie Kayel
Kantrowitz
Typists and proofreaders: Betty Dudley, Cath Thompson, Kit Quan, Susan
Goldberg, Valerie Stoehr
Cover: Amy Klitsner, photo: "Untitled"
Office help, correspondence, ads and accounting: Laura Israel, Nina Wouk,
Sheila BrushThanks to Bobby Ro thschild and Rebecca Kutlin of Tamed Technology
Distribution and mailing: Barbara Dinnerstein, Anita Schriver, Debbie Fier,
Dolphin Zelda Waletzky, Elizabeth Fides, Jasmine Marah, Leslie Baker, Nan
Schlosberg, Pat Dixon, Rhea, Sonja Erickson, Valerie Stoehr
Reader for the Womyn's Braille Press: Judy Freespirit

SINISTER WISDOM, founded 1976
Former Editors and publishers: Harriet Ellenberger (aka Desmoines)
and Catherine Nicholson (1976-81)
Michelle Oiff and Adrienne Rich (1981-83)
Michaele Ua:ella (1983-84)
Melanie Kaye/Kantrowitz (198:4l7)
Copyright © 1988 Sinister Wisdom All rights reserved to individual artists and authors.

lSSN: 0196-1853

Sinister Wisdom· P.O. Box 3252 • Berkeley CA 94703
SubSCription Rates: 1 year =4 issues
Individual, $17, Out of U.S., $20 CU.S. $)Institu~ional, $30, Hardship, $6, Sustaining, $35-200
Free on request to women in prison and mental institutions

A Journal for the Lesbian Imaginationin the Arts and Politics
Contents
3 Elana Dykewomon • Notes for a Magazine
6 Notes on the Themes (upcoming issues)
9 Judith Katz • The Amazing Disappearing Woman
Disappears (novel excerpt)
19 Tara Danaan • The Grave's a Fine and Private Place (narra tive)
22 Beth Povinelli • Parthenogenesis (poem)§§§
23 Sarah Lucia Hoagland • Lesbian Separatism: An
Empowering Reality (essay)
34 Anna Livia • Seventeenth Sighting: Dead Heat (novel
excerpt)
41 Laura Hershey • Progress (poem)

§§§
43
44
47
49

Nicky Morris • A Sunny Day (prose)
Marjory Nelson • Desire (narrative)
Sawnie Morris • Your Passing (poem)
zana· man plague (narrative)

§§§
58
59
66
67
70

Catalina Rios • The Three Tongues (poem)
Donna Allegra • A Toast of Babatine (narrative)
Christian McEwen • Doubles (poem)
Sheila Ortiz Taylor • Southern Exposure (poem)
Bernice Mennis • Without Will (poem)§§§
71 Michelle D. Williams • Moondancer (novel excerpt)
83 Martha Serpas • Xenophile (poem)
85 Vivienne LouIse • Ayemu's Children (narrative)

97 Cheryl Elaine Davis • Stone Hands (novel excerpt)
106 Jasmine Marah • Catching a Spirit (na.rrative)
111 Correction to Margaret Tongue's poem
Fathers/Daughters in SW #33§§§
112 Rebecca Ripley • Magic Mommas, Trembling Sisters,
Puritans and Perverts by Joanna Russ (review)
115 Valerie Taylor • Dreams of the Woman Who Loved Sex by Tee
Corinne (review)
116 Louise Rafkin • Wingwomen of Hera by Sandi Hall (review)
117 Books Received
119 Contributors' Notes
122 Announcements and Classified Ads§§§
ART
cover Amy Klitsner • Untitled (photograph)
8 Sudie Rakusin • Diptyk, Tari Pennu: Mandala/We are all partof the whole (painting)
21 Jano. Untitled (drawing)
65 Max Dashti • Scarab Goddess (drawing)
82 Drashan Redack • Moon City (drawing)
84 Sudie Rakusin • from Goddesses and Amazons (drawing)
105 Drashan Redack • Theater Dome (drawing)_______________ Notes for a Magazine

Lesbian visions, fantasy, science fiction
I read in the papers
You're going to come here,
You're finally ready to take us back home.
I hear that you fly there, without any planes there
And you teach magic in the schools.
If you are on your way
Won't you give us some kind of sign?
If you are coming here to take us away
I want to be the first, first in line.
If you are coming to take us home
Let it be now.
- Linda ShearlSomewhere in our minds a thousand worlds lurk: all those different
worlds we must be thinking of when we say, "take us home" or '1 don't
wan t to live here anymore." As if dykes could turn the sky inside out andshake new worlds from it.
Can we?
We certainly give it a good try. We agree, times are tough. But times
appear to have been tough for womyn for centuries. Every time we reachfor a fresh metaphor, a compelling image, a parallel universe, some inner
peace, bedtime fables or political analysis, we create new possibilities.
Of course we have to live on this particular planet in this particulartime. No goddess, no amazon space traveler, has come for us yet.
Sometimes making stories and images isn't enough. We get restless. We
want to find something that does turn the sky inside out. An imaginationthat reinvents or restates the social principles that govern our lives insuch a clear and compelling way that we finally feel like we have a
choice. Some new road to try. Not when technology either hurtles us to
the stars or back to villages, but here in our day to day lives.
In fantasy, as in politics, the desire to invent new worlds can chafe
against our material needs. We can recreate ourselves as beings who cancure cancer, turn ourselves into space heroes, envision perfect communal childcare, a world without war, inter-dependent utopian anarchist3lesbian colonies. But our very creativity can leave us with a bitterness,a sense of frustrated anticipation.
We need to understand all the different forms of fantasy as ways toheighten our sense of urgency2 and affirm our belief in our ability toremake the world. We need to find ways to be patien t with this urgency,
knowing that every motion forward is made of a thousand small,individual acts; every story is composed from thousand of letters, theshape and form of which we take for granted until we struggle to findthat "perfect" word. The word that will startle our creative selves into
action.
This issue was motivated by a desire to share some serious fun. The
works in this issue are a wonderful handful of imaginings. A few arescience fiction, many are fantasy, some are descriptions of living withlesbian vision today. In this issue, we present as many takes on reality
as we have room for. We have to hope that by encouraging imagination,
pushing and prodding, inventing outrageous galaxies and the perfectamazon village, we push our minds towards their own evolution. We
cannot quite reach the womyn we hope to become, the world in which
we want to work and love. Butwe can infuse our present with all mannerof fabulous images, challenge our habits of thought. Enjoy; be encouraged; invent more; share your inventions with us. We may get home yet.

Making a Magazine
Making Sinister Wisdom is work. It requires business and personalorganization, many lesbians' hands and minds. Here in Oakland, Sinister Wisdom has many friends and volunteers, a computer and access toa wide spectrum of technical resources. The mailing lists are computerized, invoices and bookkeeping are on disc. Still, we have to sendbookstores reminders to pay; renewal letters have to be folded andstuffed into envelopes. Exchange ad and periodical files have to be kept.
The issue has to get discussed, discussed again, conceptualized, typed,
designed. We have to deal with the printer, the post office, the bank.
Hundreds of submissions have to be read, logged, xeroxed, responded to. Hundred of letters have to get written. We want to give as
much personal response as we can, though we can't always. Giving
criticism that other womyn find useful is one of the greatest pleasures ofthis work; yet every detailed, thoughtful letter can take 1-2 hours. And
sending rejection letters is worse than going to the dentist. It seems like4

we're always slow on getting them out of here. I find I spend between
70 and 150 hours a month (maybe more?) working on Sinister Wisdom;
the editorial readers, typists, distributors, contributing editors put in
hundreds more.
But there's never enough time to do everything. When I am mostover-whelmed, I think of how Melanie put out Sinister Wisdom, virtuallyalone for a year and a half, from Rockland, Maine, and then with the helpof a small community in Vermont, primary among them Linda Vanceand Irena Klepfisz. Melanie kept SW alive during a perilous personal
and political time. I appreciate her experience and dedication as she continues to work with Sinister Wisdom as a contributing editor.
The response to #33 has been extremely positive. We appreciate
your cards and letters. We encourage specific responses, criticisms,
analysis, and will publish letters that give an in-depth treatment ofissues raised in Sw. We continue to need your financial support in orderto survive. SW is a business, and we need to keep expanding our
subscriber base in order to stay in business. Remember to renew yoursubscriptions, and encourage your friends to subscribe.

Barbara Rosenblum, to whom
Sinister Wisdom #32 was dedicated, diedin San Francisco on February 14, 1988.
Her writing and her life continue to be an
inspiration to us.

l©Linda Shear, 1975, from the song "Let It Be Now, "on her album,ALesbian Portrait.
21n the early 70's, we had a poster in the Northampton women's centerwith a quote from one of the suffragists. The quote went something like:In every woman's heart there is a core of bitter disappointment. It shallbe my task in life to deepen that disappointment until she can stand it nolonger, and revolt. A year's ftee subscription goes to the first woman
who can identify the source and give the correct quotation.

5

_______________ Notes on the Themes#35. On Passing. By the time you get this, the deadline for this issue will
have passed. We are particularly hopeful that this issue, and work in#36, will encourage more exploration of both passing and the emotional
life of our communities. We hope to publish reverberations in issue #37.
#36. Surviving Psychiatric Assault/Creating Emotional Well-Being.
When I wrote the list of things I am in my first "Notes for a Magazine,"by far the hardest to say was that I had been locked up. I am always surprised by the number oflesbians I meet who have been locked up, or who
are/have been deeply afraid of being locked up. Yet lesbian communities appear to tolerate a narrow range of "appropriate social behavior."
In this issue I want to see two things happen.
The first is a forum for womyn who have suffered psychiatricassault, in mental institutions and within the wider framework of psychiatric therapy (straight or "feminist").
The second is a discussion about how we create the quality of emotionallife in our communities. How do we get to feel we can make full,connected, purposeful lives? Where do the norms for behavior comefrom? When do we, as individuals and/or groups, set standards forwhat's "sane" and what's "crazy"? What does the word "crazy" mean
(and why do you still use it)? How do we get help when we're in crisis,troubled or stuck? How do we offer help? What do we do when alesbian's behavior becomes a danger to herself and/or those aroundher? Who decides? Do we hand over our ability to define our own mental
well-being to professionals? Are there ways for lesbians to become
therapists and maintain a sense of "right-action" and social responsibility? What's at stake between those who hate therapy and those who
swear by it? What effect does all this have on our conception of community, our ability to trust, love, imagine, work with each other? What's
going on here anyway? (Deadline: June 15)#37. Open. We get a lot of good material that doesn't fit into the theme
issues (we include some anyway), and we get writing that's been
sparked by one of the themes. Here's a space for that work. (Deadline:
October 15).

6

#38. Italian-American Lesbians. Guestedited by Rose Romano: ''What
does it mean to be an Italian-American Lesbian?
There's an Italian-American culture, distinct from the Italian as wellas the American, yet many non-Italians don't seem to have noticed- including some Lesbians, who make a special effort to recognize and respect other forgotten cultures. Why?
Italian-American Lesbians remember the witchcraft of their grandmothers and mothers and still wear evil-eye horns, yet are thought by
non-Italian Lesbians to followers of a woman-hating church. Why?
Non-Italians consider Italian culture to be patriarchal, yet mostItalian-American Lesbians grow up in families run, without question, by
women. Why?
Non-Italians believe a Lesbian is never tolerated in an Italian family,
yet the Italian-American Lesbian most often finds herself accepted as
Blood according to Italian tradi tion, onl y ostracized by families trying toAmericanize themselves. Why?
What is the difference between north and south? What does it mean
to be Sicilian? What is Omerta? Omerta American-style? How does it
combine with Lesbian silence? What is l'Ordine della Famiglia? La bella
figura? La miseria? II Mezzogiorno? La via vecchia? II mal occhio? Lacommare? Why don't you know how to speak Italian?
Given the strength and self-sufficiency of the Italian-American
woman; her place of importance in the family; her memory of the Black
Madonna; the tradition of Sappho in Sicily; and her determined urging
of guests to eat, don't you think she's a natural as a Lesbian?
Basta! Write!" (Deadline: February 15, 1989)#39. An issue on Disability. More definition to come ... (Deadline: June
15, 1989)
See the inside back cover for submission guidelines.

7©1984 Sudie Rakusin

Diptyk, Tari Pennu: Mandala/We are all part of the whole8

Judith Katz

The Amazing Disappearing Woman Disappears
from 41 LamentsIOn

the edge of the rock and moss cliffs that border Willa Kaufman'S
country lanais a tiny cabin with an army cot, a wood stove, and a pileof warm blankets. The cabin was already nestled here when Willa
Kaufman bought the land. It was called then a hunting cabin but nowomen who came to it ever hunted. Instead they came from the townof New Chelm for solitude or else for trysts, secret and otherwise.
Nadine Pagan knew this cabin as well as anyone, for she and Rosecame here often to make magic. Together they sat on the squeaking bed,smoked a joint, painted each other's faces with juice from the berries thatgrew outside. Sometimes they made love here, but those times wererare, for as much as Nadine loved Rose she often could not bear to be
touched by her. She was afraid that under Rose's fingers she would
surely fall apart at every seam.
When Willa Kaufman fell in love with that weasel, Sara Webber,even though neither one of them ever used it, the cabin was suddenly
declared off limits and no women were allowed to go there at all. Sara
reasoned that someday they might want to use it and a bunch of lesbians
would be up there having a slumber party and then where would thatleave them, and Willa Kaufman was forced to agree. She went herself
and put a padlock on the cabin door. She dusted her hands off when thejob was done.
So the little cabin sat and sat for many months empty. Rose camefrom time to time to tend her secret marijuana patch and peered inthrough the grimy windows. Then she sat down with her back to thelocked door, looked out onto the woods below her and thought carefully
about times gone by.
It is toward this very cabin, this padlocked cabin way up high on thecliffs of Willa Kaufman'S land that Nadine Pagan comes walking after
she creeps out of Audry Schaefer's bed in the middle of three o'clock inthe morning. She is driven and she doesn't know what drives her, but
the whole long way as she walks on achy legs and throbbing feet, she sees
only Micky Robbins stepping hard on the wedding glass and her sister9Electa falling deep into his arms, she sees the flames she has made out of
two movie theaters and a drive-in. The whole long way she walks on
unsteady feet down the middle of Main Street, up onto the highway, andunder the light of the moon, kicking at pebbles on the back roads thatlead to Willa' s land, she is wondering what can one of these events-mysister' s wedding-have to do with the other events-these fires I havemade.
By the time she comes to theland night has turned into morning andstill itis Micky's foot she sees and still there is the smell of gasoline in her
nose and still she cannot make these things together make sense. But
here she is at last on the dirt road that takes her up through the birch
forest, past the rocks as big as Lot's wife, up she goes into the woods. She
carries nothing, she leaves nothing behind.
Nadine pries the padlock off with a branch. She closes the door behind her, wraps herself in a big red blanket, falls back onto the bed, andshe cries. She cries until her teeth ache and her eyes swell, and then she
sleeps without dreaming, she doesn't know for how long. When she
wakes it takes her a minute to remember where she is and then she cries
again.
For the next days she sits without moving, barely breathing, barely
marking when the sun comes up and when it goes down again. The
chickadees some to the cabin window and sing to her but they do notbring her pleasure. When she absolutely has to, she goes out to pee but
she does not linger and never does she venture out into the deep woods.
Then one morning she wakes and it is a new season on the land, theair is crisp and cool, the sun is lower in the sky. Nadine pulls the blanket
close around her and walks out of the cabin down toward the river thatcrosses Willa Kaufman's land. The waters run swiftly, Nadine dips inher hands and drinks and drinks. She washes her face in the chilly
waters but when she sees the reflection of her own eyes she barely
recognizes herself and again starts to cry. She howls like a dog, like awolf, like a vildachia, because she looks like an animal to herself in thewater, she has made of herself an animal, and because ofthis she can only
howl.
Nadine closes her eyes by the bank of the river, and when she does
she sees burning. Then she sees her sister Electa in her white wedding
gown dancing slow with her'sister Jane. She closes her eyes and touches
the warmth that is Audry, wide shouldered, soft lipped. She closes hereyes and Rose is before her, who winks and whispers, "1 know you set
the fires, Nadine, all three of them, yes I do. And I know why."
Then as if to put herself out, Nadine jumps into the river and swims,
first to one side and then the other, again and again, side to side, until she

10

can swim no longer. She drags herself out of the river, wet and shivering,back to the cabin. She peels her clothes off and leaves them to bake dryin the early autumn sun.
When she sleeps Nadine dreams of police cars. When she wakes she
searches for food. The days go by and the days go by, and on the nightof the new moon, Nadine has this dream:
I take a knife and with my right hand I slice off my left-handed fingers
one by one. These I place in a big black kettle. With my bloody stump
I hold an onion, with my right hand I chop; with my stump I hold acarrot and this also I chop. I slice I dice I rice I chop stalks of celery,cloves of garlic, green beans and tomatoes. These I throw into the pot
with my fingers and begin to make soup, which I stir with a wooden
spoon on an open flame. When it bubbles from boiling I ladle it into
wooden bowls. In each bowl I am careful to put a finger, and of thesebowls I gave one to Jane, one to Electa, one to Rose, one to Audry. The
biggest bowl, the one with my thumb in it, I give to my mother who isat the head of the table saying a blessing over the candles. My Zayde
Yitzkach is on the ceiling playing a froelich. "Why is she lighting
candles?" I whisper. No one answers. Instead they sit, each of themchewing my fingers, sucking the marrow from my bones, gurgling andsmacking their lips, eating me alive. "But why is she lighting thecandles?" I whisper again. Zayde Yitzkach jumps down from theceiling and pats my stump gently. "Happy New Year," he tells me.
"It's Rosh Ha Shana."

II
When she wakes she moves not a muscle and counts the days. Her
Zayde was right. It is Rosh Ha Shana, the Jewish New Year. She must go
down to the river and let go of her sins. She takes with her a pen and ascrap of paper she finds under the bed. She slips on her shoes and to theriver she walks.
At the water's edge she scratches the words, Ha Bayita, The Home;The Fire, Ha Esch; The Family, Ha Mishpocha, and these she throws into
the river. She takes from her pocket her wallet, the few dollars she has,and these she throws into the river as well. From the pocket that sits overher heartshe lifts out her notebook, her journal full of stories and lies, andalso this she throws into the river, and with it her guilt, her shame, thesound of her mother's voice. She picks out of her coat pockets little piecesof lint and balled-up cookie fortunes, thirty-seven cents in pennies anddimes. All of this she tosses in and watches as it drifts, sinks and spinson the choppy waters flowing south. On an old playing card, the three11

of spades, she writes the words Audry, Rose and pyromania. This she
throws into the river, and after that her pen. Then Nadine takes off her
earrings in the shape of the goddess Isis and her ring in the shape of a
cobra, and all of these does she throw in. She reaches up for her labrys
and feeling it gone remembers that this was her gift to Jane on the nightof Electa' s wedding, and so she doesn't have it now to throwaway. Lastof all she throws into the river her jacket, the one she found at theGood will with patches on the elbows that remind her of her father, Mel.
And when she divests herself of all her goods, she sits on the bank andwatches the river flow, the gentle waves lapping on the muddy shore,
she sits on a stump of a log and thinks, "All my life drifts before me andafter me who will stand up for me, who will love me after all I havedone?"In the chill of late September, in this spot in the woods wheresummer's smell still lingers, Nadine Pagan unties her heavy boots whichhave carried her so faithfully from one spot to another. She takes themoff and places them by a rock on the river bank. Then she takes off her
socks, and these she tosses into the river. She unclips her overalls, climbs
out of them, and these she throws in also, and then her sweater and herflannel shirt, and her cotton underpants, and finally the tee shirt she
wears that says across the front of it NO MORE LIES, until naked she
stands shivering at the water's edge. And for the sin of her inability toknow love when she sees it, Nadine Pagan throws herself into the river,leaving behind her only those fine brown hiking boots with their thickrubber soles to stand at attention side by side while Nadine falls into theriver so sweet and yellow, how warm as it carries her down down into
the deep of it, the sweet water tumbling over her as she falls down down
down.

III
She flies and then she stops flying, the weight of her body in theswiftly flowing ri ver pulling her further and further down into the ri verbed, pulling her slowly through the layers and layers of clay and sand,through the muck and mire she pushes and pushes, pebbles and shells
stick into her mouth. She feels she is suffocating but still she breathes,
she breathes and she feels fingers pulling on her, hands grasp her ankles,
pull her down down through the leaves and twigs which lodge in her
throat. Her neck feels like breaking, her lungs are collapsing but she
pushes still, she knows that if she does not come out the other side of thisshe will never breathe again. And so she thrusts herself further, her
12cheeks full of pebbles, her nails packed with clay, she scratches thesediment walls as down them she is carried, butt first, certain she will
never breathe again, so certain, deeper and deeper into the mud, andthen suddenly the sand breaks and there is more water rushing and on
the crest of this rapid she is carried to a grotto, where she can swim andrest and breathe at last.
Nadine swims toward the shore. When she stands, her feet touchslippery rock, solid ground, she is up to her shoulders in these waters
and so swims, then walks, to the water's edge.
Nadine is met here by another woman, naked, round-muscled. Her
breasts are large, her shoulders wide, the color of her eyes is brown andgolden. This woman at the water's edge, Nadine's height, no taller, ahead full of wild black hairs strewn through with white, holds out her
hands as Nadine slips and slides on the grotto floor. "Come," she says,"come up with me." And Nadine grabs the woman's hand and is pulled
up naked from the water, together with this stranger she stands naked
and barefoot on the cold limestone floor. "Come," says the woman, whoholds now a lantern, "follow me quickly, we have much to do."Nadine glances down at her feet on this unsteady floor, sees now
saltboxes tied to them with rags. Her legs are wrapped also with rags,
and the floor of this cave is no longer limestone but covered with icy
snow, which cracks and bites into Nadine's feet. She is no longer naked,
but wears a heavy cloth coat, bulky, two sizes at least too big. On herhead what's this, a little cap, and long payism brush against her cheeks.
Tsitsits, religious fringes, hang down to her waist.
On either side are people dressed as she, some older, some younger,
some women with shawls on their shoulders, some men carrying
bundles, some have real shoes on their feet and some only rags. "Where
are we going?" Nadine asks the woman who met her who now wears along white beard, a wide brimmed hat and a heavy wool coat.
The old man touches a finger to her own wrinkled lips. "Shh, little
one, these woods are full of danger. The soldiers from the Tsar's army,
may they rot in Hell, would just as soon run you through wi th a knife as
look at you ... and they like to do it on Holy nights like this, just to makeus crazy, but we can't be bothered with that now, come along, followme."
The stranger leads the way through crusty snow to a clearing. In the
middle of it, sticking up out of the snow, is a heavy wooden door madefrom rough-hewn boards. A big rusted ring is the handle. The stranger
and some of the other men pull the door open. "Here," she says, "climb
down." All the people do as they are told, all but Nadine who hesitateson the edge and peers down into the cellar. "Get in, little boy," the13stranger tells her, "God will protect you here, I promise."
Nadine looks into the old man's eyes. There is no one here sheknows or trusts but everyone looks familiar. "It's safe, be a good boy,climb in."In the underground chamber, torches hang on damp walls. Children like Nadine are huddled around women whose heads are covered
with dusty babushkas. Some weep, some sing, others stand and pray.
There are a few men, very old, who sit along the walls and bob theirbearded heads over prayer books as they chant aloud.
At the end of this chamber is a door, but there are no windows.
Nadine looks around helplessly. Here she belongs to no one, she has nofamily, there is no one who pays her special attention. Her eyes fill withtears, then a woman holds out a piece of black bread to her, and a ladlefull of water. "Little boy, little boy, eat this. If God forbid thosebarbarians find us you'll at least be big and strong. Nadine takes thebread and looks into the woman's face. The woman pinches Nadine's
cheek. "How old?"
Nadine shrugs.
" Bar mitzvahed yet?"
She shakes her head.
"Is your mother here?""No," Nadine tells her.
''Well,'' says the woman, "these are my children, Rivke andShmuel." She puts her arms around the two sleeping bundles at her
sides. "You don't know where your mother is, we don't know where
their father is . . . went off to Cracow and never came back . .. did he leaveme for another woman, did the Cossacks tear him to pieces, either way
I'm an aghuna, we'll never know. Come si t by us, it's warmer to sleep thatway. You have to rest when you can. You never know when they'll findus and we'll have to start running again." The woman pats the space
between herself and her Rivke. Nadine curls into it gratefully. She falls
fast asleep, the little piece of black bread still in her hand.
When Nadine wakes, everyone around her is asleep. The torches on
the walls are turned down low. The sounds of uneven snoring and shifting bodies replace the chanted prayers. Nadine closes her eyes and tries
to sleep again, but she cannot. Gingerly she pulls away from Rivke andher mother. She tiptoes over the sleepers who toss fitfully on the cold
floor.
Nadine stands before the door at the end of the chamber for a longtime. A glass lantern sits barely burning near a prayer book. Slowly
Nadine pulls at the door and picks up the lantern. It is dark and cold out
there, but something on the other side calls to her. She looks back in

14

order to remember all she sees here, then steps into the darkness andcloses the door.
The path under her feet is cold and damp. Limestone drips, off in the
distance she hears rushing water. Her lantern is dim, but Nadine seesenough to know that she is not in danger from animals or men.
Nadine is close to the rushing water. She feels it,she smells it, a river
roaring madly, it's right in front of her, the cold spray tickles her face. She
needs to wade through it but she isn't sure-if the water is deep, she'll
be swept away. The foam splashes up against her naked body, thecurrent is so strong she will surely be knocked over.
She lays back against the slippery rock that banks this river, turns
down her lantern, and Nadine Pagan sleeps again.

IV
Nadine Pagan wakes in a place where the stench is human, humanrefuse, burning humans, humans rotting alive in their own shit andblood. On her feet are wooden clogs that scrape against her bones. On
her bod y she wears a dress made ou t of wet cardboard, in the rain as she
stands now it becomes heavy and heavier. The shoes stick deep into themud. She has no hair, her eyeballs bulge.
Nadine picks through a garden of human manure. She sweeps out
the bones from a gian t oven, pushes them ou t and gags to remember tha t
one of these sets of bones is her sister, her mother. In another part of thisdesecrated planet is her father, her brother-in-law. She sweeps, she cries,
she makes this lamentation:

My bones your bones
all of them the same bones
I'll shovel them up
until I dropthen someone otherwill shovel up mine.
My bones your bones
in a minute I'll drop .

V
Nadine wakes again on a plush velvet couch. She hears the scratch
scratch of pen to paper, sees bent over a small writing table the back ofa woman with hair very dark and curled, piled high on her head and tiedwith a ribbon. She has a shawl wrapped around her, a candle burns at

15

her side. Through a closed door Nadine hears the muffled voices of more
women talking. For a minute she thinks she is in the upstairs room at
Lechem V'Shalom.
"Excuse me/' Nadine says in a voice whose rasp surprises her,
"what place is this?"
The woman writing finishes her sentence then turns her head andsays, "Rest quietly, Nadine. I'll get you some tea.""But where am I?"
The woman comes to her bedside and touches Nadine's forehead
wi th the palm of her hand. "Rest, darling Nadine, soon all questions will
be answered." The woman walks out. Nadine wa tches her, this woman
in a green silk dress, who is she, and what is Nadine doing here on acouch in a sa tin bathrobe, a fire in the fireplace, women talking in anotherroom? She watches the shadows from the kerosene lamp flicker on theceiling. She feels like she's been run over by a truck. When she tries tolift herself off the couch she can barely move her head.
The woman in green comes back with a little teapot and a china cup.
Both of these she sets down on the night stand. She tucks the blankets
in around Nadine. "Warm enough?"
Nadine tries to speak again but the muscles in her throat close all at
once and the best she can do is nod. The woman pours the tea and holds
it up to Nadine's mouth. The steam and smell envelop her.
"My name is Magda," the woman says and Nadine swallows the tea.
"Ili ve here wi th my three sisters. We are very glad to see you ali ve. Someof us wondered what took you so long to get here. You must rest now
and recover quickly because there is much to be done." Magda holds
Nadine's head as she lays the pillows flat against the couch then gently
lowers Nadine down. Then Magda turns the kerosene lamp down low.
"But where is this place?" Nadine asks again in a soft voice.
"You'll know it tomorrow," Magda tells her.
Nadine falls fast asleep to the gentle voices of the four sisters
meeting in the next room.
In the morning Magda pulls a square table up in front of the fire. Her
sister, Esther, whose hair is wild and red, follows with a tray full of
breakfast. A third sister, Shu la, drags in two chairs. Nadine sits up andtakes notice. "So look at her, she's a regular wide awake woman!" thefourth sister·says, "I'm Etta, you're looking good."
None of these sisters looks anything like the others. Some of them
have not even the same color skin. All of them wear clothing from adifferent time. Esther produces a deck of cards and a box of cigars.
''Not before breakfast-""Why not?"16

'We have company!"'Who's company. This is how I am in real life, Nadine. I smoke
before breakfas t and in the old days once or twice I lost my shirt at poker.
Before breakfast.""Does she know from the old days?""Do you?"
Nadine shrugs her shoulders. She has been so many people andthings in the past hours she isn't even sure she knows who she is right
this minute.
"Esther means in the days when she was walking up above-""The poor woman is barely conscious and you're telling her above.
She has no idea what you're talking about. In the meantime, the food isturning to ice.""So you won't play cards.""Later, Esther.""Later, Esther, she says." Esther tucks the cards into a drawer but
she doesn't put her cigar out. "Come sit at the table, Nadine."
The sisters help Nadine to a chair and watch her while she eats, andwhile she spoons up mouthfuls of egg and black bread, the sisters talk.
"Let's get one thing straight. First of all, we're not really sisters.
We're a family, we live here together, we have the same way of saving
the world in mind, but in our blood we are not related.""Also, we are not all of us from the same time.""Though all of us have seen what the others have lived through."
Nadine stops eating and looks from one to the other. She thinks she
knows what they are talking about but she isn't sure. 'Where are we?""This is our house."'When I came here, I came through a grotto. I was naked then andthen I was a little boy from a time not my own. What am I doing here
now? Am I really myself?""You're more yourself than usual, Nadine.""How do you know me?"
'We Know you from before.""Esther, you sound like a Zen master. How is she supposed to knowwhat that means? Itisn't important this minute, Nadine, that you understand everything. You have come a long way to be here, and we are
happy-very, very happy-to have you. Things will keep changing.
Sometimes you will wake in a different bed than the one you fell asleepin. Sometimes you will feel like somebody else entirely. But all the time,
while you are here, the people you become will al ways be you. You ha ve
come here to do important work-"'What work?"

17

"You're done with breakfast? Then come."
The sisters lead Nadine in to the next room. They si t her in a comfortable chair. They bundle her up, then they blow the lamps out.
On the wall now is a screen, on the screen there are images: ofwomen dissected, splayed on poles and spears, tied up with their legs
open and their mouths shut, tied up with a knife to their throats. The
women in the pictures are black, yellow, red, brown, white, and each ofthem is bleeding. The images are moving, there are men in the movies,
the men in these movies pull the women's eyes out, then their guts, fuckthem in the head while other men watch and laugh.
"This is a form called skull fuck," Magda tells Nadine in a soft voice.
It is part of a cinema genre known as 'Snuff.' It is an example of a particular way some men have of looking at women and the rest of theworld."
The films flicker like a tiny flame. ''We don't mean to show you thisso early in the day, but you have to know what we are up against, andwe want you to know why you are here.""Is it not true that you've done work against this kind of thing?""I've done it butitmade me sick," Nadine says. "It made me so sickit killed me.""You're not dead," all the women tell her at once.
"I'm not?"''No,'' says Esther, "of course you aren't. Nadine, you are merely
underground."S'i' yur-outofU.S.

SI 2Iyur-lndividual,$IS / yu. -!Auhut;!>n.

S;.mllie Copy: SHlOIS6.00

TR IVlA PO Box 606 N.Amhml, MA OJ059

18

Tara Danaan

The Grave's a Fine and Private Place

Iwasfeltthere
her long before I saw her, a pressure, the sensation of weight. She
every weekend. Saturday 1'd rush home long before first light.
All day I'd lay sleepily sorting her out. The heaviest spot must be herhips, the lightest her feet. I'd hold my hands as far in front of me as mycoffin permits, estimating how wide her hips, her shoulders. I madephantom images of her, then caressed them softl y. My blood-drenchedvampire dreams grew suddenly human. Hundreds of years it had been
since I last felt this need to touch flesh without drinking the blood thatkeeps me alive. I don't know how I knew she was a woman, perhaps asense of shape, maybe just a lucky guess, a wish fulfilled.
I fantasized about her all the time. At night I stalked, I hunted as
usual but even the kill began to lose its thrill. I allowed myself the easy
ones, choosing only those looking for a woman alone, pale and small inthe moonlight. Huddled on a street corner, wrapped in the illusion ofvulnerability, I watched their anger find me, their eyes glazed with indiscriminate hatred, their hearts hungry for my fear. I drained the bloodfrom these rapists swiftly. Leaving their bodies I ran home to dream. My
weekend phantom lover softened me somehow. I no longer had heart
for the slow torture, playing Death, recounting their sins and allowing
them final repentance.
During the week I spent my days imagining finding her some night,
touching her warm, mortal flesh, kissing her lips, her breasts, her neck,imagining her eyes glistening wi th love, with lust, her lips parting softly,"yes." I could almost feel the pull, the sucking and being sucked, the giveand take of blood, watching her pale and die and wake again immortal,
mine forever.
Then one Saturday she didn't leave. The earth around me slowly
cooled as my excitement rose. At last she lay waiting for me. The minutes moved slowly past as I waited impatiently for the moment I could
arise and finally meet her. She got up and moved away.
I eased myself up and out. Through the gathering darkness I saw her
retreating form, a short, wide-hipped woman with long blonde hair.
'Wait!" I yelled, running after her.

19She turned and blinked, startled.
"1, uh,letme walk you out," I stuttered. "It isn't safe here at night.""Oh, right." Her voice was low and soft. "1 fell asleep." Sheshrugged. "1 guess that sounds silly, but I sunbathe here. It's private."
She laughed, ''Neurotic, right?"''No,'' I whispered, "extraordinary." We passed under a street lamp,
her skin glowed a deep, golden brown. She looked up at me. Light greeneyes shone out of her tanned face. Her hair in the light glistened, sunbleached, almost white.
She laughed again. "Look, we're opposites," she said, taking in mydark hair and eyes and white, white skin.
"Yes, we are. You're very beautiful. Shall we stop and have a cup oftea?"
She cocked her head at me, "Yes. I guess we should."
The night wore on. We sat in a small cafe speaking softly of all theinconsequential things that women talk about when all they really want
to do is kiss. At midnight we parted. She promised to meet me again thenext night by the entrance to the graveyard.
I drank well after I left her. The wanting made me hungry and I
needed to be full and warm for her.
I passed Sunday in excruciating expectation. A few feet of earth
separated us but I could almost feel the texture of her skin against myhands. I caressed her outline in the plush lining above me. I lingered tofeel the width of her chest, the curve of her hips, the length of her thighs.
In my mind I wrapped my arms around her and cupped her breast,brushing her nipples lightly as they stiffened beneath my fingers, stroking her belly, her inner thighs, wrapping my fingers in her pubic hair,sliding one hand down into the folds of her vagina, saturating myself
with her. Then she shifted, rolling over to lay on her stomach and myhips jumped to meet hers, my mouth opened as if to receive her tongue.
She left early and I was almost grateful. I wanted to rest before we
met with nothing between us but need.
She was waiting for me, wearing a soft red dress that clung to herbreasts and hips. She smiled and took my hand, surprising me by leading me back to my own grave. She sat, leaning against my tombstone.
"This is my spot," she told me as I lowered myself beside her.
We kissed, lightly, our lips barely brushing. Her tongue caressed
my lips and teeth.
''What strange teeth you have," she whispered when we broke.
"Vampire teeth," I told her.
20

"Yes," she murmured as our lips touched again.
I caressed her neck, running my fingers along the pulse of her artery.
Her skin warmed me. I kissed the nape of her neck. Unbuttoning her
dress, I ran my tongue down her breast, licking her nipple softly. I could
taste the blood beneath her skin. I ran my hand down her side, across herhips, and stroked her leg. She moved against me, rolling so my handslipped around to cup the back of her thigh. I painted slow circles withmy fingers, sliding my hand beneath her dress, exploring the roundcurve of her ass. She moaned softly, put her lips to my ear and whispered, "Please touch me now. I've been thinking of you all day. Don't
make me wait."
I slid my fingers between her lips. Through her clitoris I could feelher blood racing. As I bent to lick her I knew I could not ask her torelinquish this rhythm for a stark white, grave-cold immortality. Not
yet.

graphic by Jana21

Beth Povinelli

Parthenogenesis
for Z.e.

Inthis white biting winteryour face is deep nairobisweet and fertile bank of the nilewarm, brown, the rich black sun
eclipsing antiquity(I reach my hand into)old
old, older than I
moon and river lappingand etching the fine furrowsof your eye's smile.
You penetrate this cold wind andI smell figs ripening under the egyptian sun.
If I could reach my handto where you and they lay
layers of black silt exuding
stratum and substratum of ancient parturition
1 would be the bed to which your fig rooting seeks,
be fertile ground and pythoness greeting,be river primordial and moon in rhythm
to fill in season and leave barren
so full and then .. .
If we could reach beyond these fingers
1 dream of lapis lazuli babies
cerulean blue, hue of the expansive nairobi sky
little girls of the cool lapis nile
sparkling golden speckles of lazuli sun.

22

Sarah Lucia Hoagland

Lesbian Separatism: An Empowering Reality1
This was originally written as the introduction to For Lesbians Only: An
Anthology of Separatist Writing, to be published by Onlywomen Press of
London. It appears here in slightly shortened form.

The choice to separate is a central one for many lesbians. Yet that choice
has been distorted or erased far too often. In developing my work on
Lesbian Ethics I realized that traditional ethics does not recognize withdrawal, separation, as a legitimate ethical option. Within the society of
dominance, separation is a non-choice. This judgment is reflectedamong lesbians. Too many lesbians hold the perception that separatism
is not active, that separatists are hiding from reality and ignore the"larger picture." This judgment is an erasure of the moral and political
function of separatism.
Separatism offers a significant type of choice, one which has a different function than choosing to challenge the system from within. Philosophically, there are at least two ways to challenge a basic statement or
idea: we can argue thati t is false or we can render it nonsense. Rendering
it nonsense is to treat it as unintelligible, as having no sense. Arguingthat it is false may bring a certain kind of satisfaction, but it is nevertheless to agree that the statement is possibly true-that it makes enoughsense to debate. Thus while challenging it this way we are, at a deeper
level, validating it.
For example, one idea still basic to university atmospheres is thatblacks are genetically inferior to whites. Liberals will corne up with a raftof arguments to prove that claim false . But in so doing, they are tacitly
agreeing that the claim is intelligible and debatable. In arguing thatblacks are not genetically inferior to whites, academic liberals agree thatit makes sense to consider whether blacks (but not whites) are genetically inferior (to the norm, namely whites). Another choice is to refuse toengage in debate, to separate from it, to treatthe claim as nonsense, to say
it makes no sense. 2 Similar situations exist concerning the "debate"
about women' s rights, the "debate" about whether large numbers ofjews were murdered during the holocaust, and many other "debates."
We live within a system of values, a system which constructs what
we perceive as fact-for example, man is rational, woman needs a man's

23

guidance. When we engage in that system, we agree tacitly to its values.
When we engage in a system that offers the system's background values
as fact, for example white supremacy or male supremacy, we contributeby consensus to its underlying structure even when also challenging it
by attempting to reform or deny such values. To withdraw from a system or a particular si tua tion is a different kind of challenge. To wi thdra w
or separate is to refuse to act according to the system's rules and framework and thereby refuse to validate its basic values. 3
Withdrawal and separation are not perceived as options when thegame played appears to be the only game in town and so is taken forreality. In a sense the game is reality, but its continued existence is not amatter of fact, not a matter of nature, so much as it is a matter of agreement: players agree on what will count as reality by what they focus on
and attend.
Separatism is not recognized as a moral and political choice because
those in power do not want us to perceive participation as a choice. To
engage in a situation or a system in order to try to change it is one choice.
To withdraw from it, particularly in order to render it meaningless, isanother choice.
Within a given situation or at a given moment there are often goodreasons for either choice. Further, both choices involve considerable
risk; neither one comes with guarantees: while directly challenging
something can validate it, withdrawing may allow it to continue essentiall y unhampered. But what is missing from traditional ethics and often
from lesbian community ethics is acknowledgment that there are ethicalchoices at this level, that participation is one of those choices, and that
separa tion is an other. And in assessing those choices, as Anna Lee notes,
separatists realize that to participate is to enact the values of a hostilesociety and so to participate in the attack on women and the erasure of
lesbians. 4Thus, the perception that separatism is merely a reaction, a runningaway, and has no integrity of its own, is a failure or refusal of understanding. Separatism is not a retreat in the sense of hiding from reality
and refusing to deal with the facts. Nor is separatism a reactionary
movement: it does not emerge from a fear of men or an inability to copeor deal with them.
Similarly, separatism is not a phase during which we learn to feelbetter about ourselves and get rid of negative feelings so we can function
better in coalitions. To understand separatism in any of these ways is to
invoke a patriarchal context. As Jeffner Allen writes about manhating,S24

it is not a whim or an aberration. It is a challenge to a context and values
that accept, indeed find desirable, that men do what they do.
Separatism is a chosen response, separatists having taken cognizance of our environment, an affirmation of what we hold valuable toour selves. Separatism is a challenge to what counts as fact, and the
beginning of the creation of new value.
In this respect, separatism is ayes-saying as much as it is a no-saying.
No-saying is essential, as Marilyn Frye argues. 6 But if we percei ve separatism only in terms of a no, then as Nett Hart suggested to me in aconversation about separatism, we have serious conflicts. For example,
we have a conflict between being open to creative changes in the universe on the one hand, and rejecting the direction of "new-age" or "sensitive" men on the other. Or, another example, we have a conflict between perceiving ourselves as caring beings on the one hand and not
being willing to deal with little boys on the other. But such conflicts are
not necessary; when we perceive separatism as a yes, we perceive ourselves as caring beings who create values possible for lesbians and all
women? And we realize we can't do both-give satisfaction to boys'
needs as constructed by society, for example, and move toward lesbian
culture. Significantly, of the organizations I know that have policies
restricting or excluding male children, none began its policy on purely
theoretical grounds. Each developed its policy as a result of experience.
There's a choice. And separatists focus on what allows us to choose
ourselves and lesbians, not always compromising that choice with manserving. Once we perceive separation as a yes, we can build more andmore choice on thatinitial yes and so create lesbian community for itself,
not simply in response to an outside threat.
This brings in focus the question of separatist motivation, particularly decisions around when to work in coalition and when not. It's our
impulse towards creating our own communities and values that guides
our choices. As Joyce Trebilcot wrote in a letter to The Women's Review ofBooks:
Lesbianism for me excludes participating in relationships withmen for their own sake, but it does not precl ude poli tical action tha t
confronts men and their institutions. Sometimes directly facing
men is necessary or worthwhile in order for us to establish ourrights, to obtain the resources we need, or to defend and support
other women. Many separatists are regular organizers of and participants in political actions that involve dealing with men both inconfrontation and in coalition. It is a misunderstanding of separa-25

tism to suppose that it is always or usually similar to the withdrawal of some Germans into an "interior life" during the Third
Reich.s
She goes on to state that rather than valuing woman-only space as ameans to a better relationship with men, she will deal with men only as ameans to being with women. Sometimes our tactics might seem identical to those of non-separatists and non-~esbians, but separatists are
doing something different. 9
In this respect, as Nett Hart noted in conversation, it is erroneous toregard separatism as coming out of feminism. If we perceive separatism
as merely derivative of feminism, we would think of it as an extreme
reaction because of what passes for feminism today. Early feminism of
this wave (very late 60's, early 70's), in its focus on women, was deeply
disturbing to the status quo. In changing their relationship to theworld-nature and culture-women were removing themselves fromthe world men had taken/ dominated for their own purposes. Early
feminists were separating from patriarchy and its values.
No, separatism does not come out of feminism; rather, feminism hasdeveloped away from separatism. Reform feminists broke from early
feminism by assimilating their goals to the goals patriarchy has forhumans (males) . That is, they fight to be humans in patriarchal terms. It
is not that there was early radical feminism and then separatists broke off
as more radical. Rather feminists broke off toward assimilation. Early
feminist groups were separatist; there was no place for men. 10 As Bette
Tallen comments,lesbian separatists are the only stability the women's
movement has known, holding on to basic political analyses developedin the early 70' s while other parts of the feminist movement wavered andoften abandoned the politics with which they began.11
Separatism is not perceived as an ethical choice in part because it is
not perceived as active nor separatists as pctivists. But such a judgment
affirms patriarchal values. As Joyce Trebilcot wrote in Gossip and off ourbacks:To be an acti vis t is to engage in actions in tended to make changes in
who has what political power. In male-thought, it is assumed that
there is a fixed amount of power in a particular situation. Hence,
activism is understood by men as aimed at a redistribution of
power (as distinct from the creation of new power) and as essentiallyadversarial. In this context, the essence of activism is to persuade those in power that they morally (i.e., because it is right) or
prudentially (i.e., because it is in their interest) ought to change
26their behavior. Paradigm cases of activism include demonstrations,letter-writing campaigns, and guerilla actions.
This heteropatriarchal concept of activism excludes two central
kinds of feminist activism: separatism and private activism. The
activism of separatists is based on the understanding that one way
to change the distribution of power is for a hitherto powerlessgroup to separate off and empower themselves. When women
separate and hence create power for ourselves, certain men are
deprived of power they would otherwise have had, i.e., powerover these particular women; but the women's power isn't seizedfrom the men, it is created by the women for ourselves. Thus, while
separatism doesn't redistribute power, it alters, sometimes radically, the over-all distribution of power. 12
And this brings up the issue of the "larger picture": Is our separatism the big picture or is it that we separate in order to come back to a big
picture? What lesbian separatists have argued is that big political movements and legal reform don't bring the kind of change we're after. Yes,
women can vote now, and that is a necessary step; and yes, segregation
per se is no longer openly legal; and yes, the nazis were stopped, temporarily; and yes, in russia and china mammon does not reign supreme .. .
yet; and yes, the official war in vietnam is over, temporarily, and on andon. But no, these accomplishments have not brought or even encouraged the kind of womon/lesbian-Ioving values that separatists and radical lesbians are working toward.
At most, large political movements and legal reforms stop crises,
and at times we may decide that now is a time to work to stop some crisis
or other. But such movements and reforms do nothing to change thefabric of our society, they do not undermine the structure and foundationthat feed oppression and that will make it credible again and again incountless different arenas. Further, insofar as these crises force us toplay
by dominant rules, they reinforce dominant structure and ideology.
Others forget or have not figured ou tthat men create crises, when all else
fails, to force us to play by their rules and game plan, to force us to stay
focused on them. Responding to crises does nothing to deter the direction of a society that thrives on crises.
Those who dismiss separatist politics as hiding from reality tacitly
agree with the patriarchy and help to keep us believing that patriarchy is
the onl y reali ty, that w ha t men call revolution is the onl y revolution, andtha t w ha t men call change is the only change. In my opinion, it is separatists who are fighting the "larger" cause. 13

27

Related is the issue of "widening" feminist politics to include greaternumbers. Early radical feminism presented a choice for women. Watering down the politics to make them more palatable undermines thatchoice. It is more important to make the values and choices clear andallow each woman to choose than it is to lure a woman on false pretenses
or worse, to change feminist politics to include those who would rejectfeminist values. That, of course, is not to "widen" feminist politics, but
shift its locus from those who create its val ues to those who don't find thevalues valuable.14 It is condescending and demeaning to everyone invol ved. Beyond this, the "widening" has not resul ted in the incl usion of
more women, particularly more women of color, but it has resulted in
the inclusion of men, particularly white men.
And this raises the question of racism. Separatism is portrayed as
racist either because separatists allegedly do not recognize or acknowledge that men of color are oppressed or because it is alleged that the onl y
way to end racism is to work in coalitions or because some women ofcolor don't feel comfortable separating from men of color. Of course,
some women/lesbians of color and jewish women/lesbians feel quite
comfortable separating from men, and some white, gentile women don't
feel comfortable separating from white, gentile men . . . ; the issue is,what value is enacted by the choices?
A more significant and problematic argument is that if wimmin/
lesbians of color and/ or jewish wimmin/lesbians separate, the separation is not only from the values of white, capitalist patriarchy, but also
from the values of black or puerto rican or jewish culture, for example.
This second separation involves conforming to the dominant culture's
attempt to annihilate the values of mexican and chinese and black culture, for example, and brings up questions of identity and group loyalty
which each separating lesbian must answer to her own satisfaction.
Nevertheless, the lesbians/ wimmin who do make the choice to separate
do not totally reject jewish or chinese or quebec;oise culture, for example,
though there is a separation from masculinist parts of the culture. Lesbian separatists of color and jewish lesbian separatists bring those valuesof black and seminole and jewish culture, for example, to lesbian community that enrich and develop lesbian values. (In like fashion nonjewish whi te lesbians bring those val ues of non -jewish w hi te cuI ture tha tenrich and develop lesbian values.)
Lesbian community is a rich source of diversity and offers us concrete access to a multitude and variety of differences virtually not available elsewhere, certainly not to lesbians. As Elana Dykewomon and28

Anna Lee both commented to me, lesbian community provides us withthe ability to really sweat it out together, to understand how our different values operate / engage / distort / contribu te / mesh / clash / complement in our various political! cultural work. That others offer what I do
not have direct access to is a gift! cherish, and it is part of what makes
lesbian community so very speciaL
Labeling separatism racist per se is a way of disagreeing with separatist politics without any real argument or debate over political differences. Merely hurling a label no one of us would wantto be accused ofis
an effective tool to avoid debate of the issues, to censor ideas and silence
argument, especially criticism.
For example, there is a difference between concerning ourselveswith racism as lesbian separatists and deciding thatthe only way to reallywork on racism is to stop being separatists and join with men. The latterclaim presupposes both that lesbians are not valuable enough to recei ve
our own attention and that lesbians are incapable of accomplishing
meaningful work without men. Beyond self-effacement of this kind
there is an unwillingness to learn from herstory. Time after time after
time, both in the first wave of feminism and in this wave, when womenbring in men, the values of the project, whatever it is, shift to men'svalues and purposes.
In some respects, I find labeling separatism racist functions to obscure a serious division between socialist and anarchist tendencies
among lesbians. In my experience, antiseparatists have more u.s. socialist sensibilities-challenging the system by trying to substitute anotherone that, while addressing significant economic problems, neverthelessrelies heavily on hierarchy (dominance and subordination), manipulation, and institutional control; often sacrificing means to end. Separatists
tend to have more anarchist sensibilities-distrusting institutional
power of any kind, wanting new value to emerge from small groups
engaged in. creating new ways of being, and realizing that the means
determine the end- that is, how we behave toward each other is thevalue we enact.
And this leads to what is perhaps the most important aspect of separatism for me, namely its focus on lesbians (or wimmin) and a creation oflesbian meaning, lesbian reality. Perceiving is a process of creation. As
we choose wh~t we will pay attention to we determine what is significant and what is not. I am not interested in focusing on men, whether
exceptional or normaL Separatism, for me at least, is largely a matter ofwhat Marilyn Frye and Carolyn Shafer term lesbian connectionism and29

also what french-speaking lesbians call radical lesbianism. 15 By focusing
on ourselves and pursuing what we find valuable, we create lesbian
meaning.
Each lesbian who has chosen to separate has chosen to focus on
lesbians, or in some cases, on women. Despite the lack of ethical andpolitical acknowledgment and despite all the distortions, each separatist
chose to begin withdrawing her focus from the dominant culture's romance with men and their values. And regardless of whether her focus islesbians or women, the context is lesbian. Separatists do not disagree
about withdrawing and refocusing. This tacit agreement gives life to a
new reeJity. The point of my separating is to maintain this focus, thisground of being; to develop my own emerging perceptions and encourage development of the emerging perceptions of my peers, perceptions
that grow away from the values of the dominant ideology.
Yes, of course, to have chosen to withdraw from- to cease validating- the dominant ideology is not yet to say what will take its place.
While we have named the direction and suggested certain parameters of
our ideals, we have not yet developed the full set of values that replacethose which justify and validate oppression. We are acknowledging thetask and setting ourselves to begin the creation of new value. That isprecisely why it is crucial we focus on ourselves as lesbians and create
lesbian meaning.
And we have begun. We have begun lesbian journeying. We havebegun lesbian journeying to touch a rich source of imagination anddreams. We have begun exploring these ideas, living them to find out
what works, what doesn't, and why.
Nevertheless, while we have begun, we have also let up in certain
respects. I think u.s. separatists have much to gain from the work of both
french-speaking radical lesbians and english separatists. Separatists inthe u.s. have retreated from developing our analysis of heterosexualism
and affirming the value of lesbianism. Sometimes I describe this aslesbian journeying coming to a halt. To this idea Nett Hart responded:
I don't think lesbian journeying ever came to a halt. Instead I think
our words/ actions became less identifiably separatist as they took
on complexity, as we adapted our work to a much longer struggle
than we anticipated in the early years. Much early separatist
theory was developed by dykes (both urban and rural) in
communal households/tribes, and in political action and workcollectives. As things began to change, separatisttheory had a hardtime adapting to new circumstances, Le., the proximity of men.
30

These circumstances changed both our focus and how we namesthat focus. I think our sense that the movement was coming to ahalt emerges from a failure to validate what we have been doing.
She goes on to suggest that there may be more separatists now thanat any previous time:
I think the betrayal of a radical agenda by reform feminists has
been significant. Many separatists worked in female environments on straight agendas- abortion, childcare, battered
women, welfare reform, sexual harassment and discrimination,rape crises, women's studies-and as the ideology with which
we came to these commitments is supplanted by pieces of the"feminist" pie, we have come to realize how much we werefeeding a reform agenda. Both these "political" movements andfeministtherapy have served to help women adjust to the worldas created by men. Not every coalescence around women isradical. In choosing to work with women (because "every
woman can be a Lesbian" as Alix Dobkin sings) we accepted thecircumstances of their lives and diverted ourselves from ourlesbian focus. I think the realization that these reform measuresneither engender nor tolerate Lesbian vision has catapulted
many Lesbians into Lesbian separatist self-Iove.16
It is time to come back, to focus on an organic Lesbian journey. When
we stop focusing on each other and instead focus on the agendas of thefathers, we engage in our own erasure. When lesbians tum our backs oneach other as lesbians, we cease to exist in certain key ways. We can notexist as lesbians in the dominant society, and if we don't exist in eachother's attention then we don't exist at all except as isolated beings left tosurvive and hang on and integrate as best we can into heterosexual
concepts, or we are left to be complete loners with no fertile ground on
which to grow and develop.
At the national radical thought conference for women in cleveland,may, 1987, about 49 separatists came to participate. We found that while
we had all come through a period of attack and retrenchment, we had
endured; and we found we were moving toward creating lesbian value.
It was a powerful time for US . 17 And the conference worked for us because it was made up of self-loving women who, for the most part, were
working on issues that directly concern us.
It is time to come back. We have many difficult and complex tasks
ahead of us. For example, continuing to address world-wide gynephobia, without falling prey to arguments that use cultural relativism to31block criticism of the subordination of women and the annihilation oflesbians, while also realizing our own connection to a u.s. imperialist
tradition. For example, dealing with the pressure of coalition thinking(vs. actual coalition work at given times for particular reasons) as men
parade back and forth with nuclear "power" and try to transfix us with
their existential necrophilia. For example, answering the challenge tolesbian feminism, from various french-speaking radical lesbians, which
exposes how u.s. lesbian feminists have been remiss in developing
analyses of the ideology of heterosexualism.
It is time to come back again to ourselves and our own ground ofbeing wi th all our differences and ragged edges. It is time we refocus andcontinue our journey. The breaks we have made from patriarchal thinking come from lesbians daring to try to create something new. Such
focus, away from erasure, defensiveness, silence, and mere survival, is
important; it is time to move again as lesbians.

End Notes _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ __11 received much help in preparing this piece. In particular Nett Hart,

Anne Throop Leighton, Anna Lee, Lee Evans, Elana Dykewomon, Julia
Penelope, zan a, Michele Gautreaux, Lilian Mohin, Anna Livia, andKathy Munser have offered thoughtful criticisms.
2N"ote that the erasure of lesbian choice and existence by the fathers in
effect renders the choice nonsense, unintelligible, unthinkable, nonchoices within a patriarchial framework.
3The next two paragraphs contain arguments presented in mymanuscript, Lesb.ian Ethics: Toward New Value.
Note that in this respect, separatism has a function different fromthat of segregation. Segregation is done by a dominant group to a groupit wishes to subordinate and control, while separatism involves a person
or group withdrawing from a group situation in order to avoid being
controlled by the framework of that group. Thus the function of segregation is a dominant group separating off another group in order to keep
the group subordinate and to determine the social perception of thatgroup through such methods as stereotyping, thereby engaging in effecti ve erasure. The function of separatism is a group wi thdrawing from anexisting group's framework in order to not be constructed by thatgroup's values--often to exorcise stereotypes, combatting that erasure-and to create its own values, values not attainable within theframework of the initial group.
The erasure is intimately related to choice. Michele Gautreaux, who
32

grew up in a totally black housing project isolated from chicage proper,
relates that "because most had not chosen that environment or that it beall Black, at the time separateness was a perceived disadvantage compared to eatonville of Zora Neal Hurston's childhood which was chosen." (Correspondence.)
4Anna Lee, paper in progress on the lesbian community.
5Jeffner Allen, "Looking at Our Blood: A Lesbian Response to Men's
Terrorization of Women," Lesbian Philosophy: Explorations (Palo Alto,
California: Institute of Lesbian Studies, 1986): 27-59.
6Marilyn Frye, "Some Reflections on Separatism and Power," The Politics
of Reality: Essays in Feminist Theory (Trumansburg, New York: The
CrossingPress,1983): 95-109.
7In fact, as Lee Evans mentioned to me in passing, choosing ourselves ispart of what makes us lesbians, for traditional woman values dictate
always choosing others.
BJoyce Trebilcot, Letter, The Women's Review of Books IV, 2 (November1986): 4.
9Conversation, Nett Hart.
10Conversation, Nett Hart. Significantly, as Leslie Levy and Caryatis
Cardea noted at the national radical thought conference for women incleveland, may, 1987, when compromise is called for it is the more radical elements who are expected to compromise toward a lesser politic; theless radical are not expected to compromise by increasing in radicalism.
11As cited in "Doing Things Differently," J. Robbins, Womanews 8,6 (June1987): 2.
12Joyce Trebilcot, "In Partial Response to Those Who Worry That Separatism May Be a Political Cop-out: An Expanded Definition of Activism,"
Gossip 3: 82-83; an earlier version appeared in off our backs xvi,5 (May1986): 13.
13This argument first appeared in my commentary, "Dear Julia," Lesbian
Ethics 1,2 (Spring 1985): 68-73.
141n other words, feminism is not for all women, feminism is for all
women who choose feminist values. Those concerned with making
feminism popularly palatable tend to forget this.
15 See Ariane Brunet and Louise Turcotte,"Separatism and Radicalism:
An Analysis of the Differences and Similarities," Lesbian Ethics II, 1(Spring 1986). For Lesbians Only will have a section on french-speaking
radical lesbians.
16Nett Hart, together with Lee Lanning, runs word weavers. Together
they have produced Maize: A Lesbian Country Magazine as well as Ripening, Dreaming, and Awakening, three almanacs of lesbian lore and vision.
(Word Weavers, Box 8742, Minneapolis, Minnesota 55408).
170ne significant aspect of the conference as a whole is that at the end,
separatists and non-separatists gave the organizers a standing ovation.
While there were mistakes and problems, what we celebrated at that time
were the accomplishments.
33

Anna Livia

Seventeenth Sighting: Dead Heatfrom BULLDOZER RISING

Down the street walked a fatwoman. She trod carefully, if massively,
her steps smooth, avoiding any extra swing of flesh, thighs apart, braced
like a rider's, arms graceful at her sides resisting each urge to tug the sui t
top down over her waist, that ineffectual twitch which marks thevulnerable, the ones who want the ground to swallow them up. Her
breath was even, studied. She wore formal costume. Though jiggle suits
were welcoming in their easy give and take, the elastic contours molded
themselves on the body so that every ripple of fat was starkly outlined.
Costume is constricting, but it lends shape and anonymity to its wearer.
The pavement narrowed where a shopfront projected. The two
youngmen behind the woman would find it difficult to overtake her
without breaking step with each other. Anticipating this impasse, she
speeded up. This only confirmed her predicament. Had she slowed, theyoungmen might have passed her before the straits, but it is never safe
for a fatwoman to dawdle and she was flustered. A blind friend was
following, ten paces back, and, as she was also fat, it was naturally
impossible for the two to walk together, even where the pavement
permitted. Would the blind woman be confused by the sound of theyoungmen's footsteps?
"Like overtaking a whale," observed one youngman.
"Or a monster slug," refined his friend.
"Stuffed slug in that costume."'Would you like to lose weight? Ask me how."'Well, slug, ask him.""How?" asked the fatwoman.
'Try a full sentence.""How do I lose weight?""Cut you down to half the size.""Trim away unwanted fat.""Display those fine bones you got under ... What the shit . .. ? The
blind woman had, unfortunately, caught them up. She stumbled into
one of them.

34

'Watch where you're ... ""The flayed torso of a man has been found in a plastic bag in theburn-out park. A left leg, left hand and right foot had been deposited insmaller bags in the vicinity. Citizens' Watch states that none of the limbs
belong to the same body. Though all are male.""Get carried away?" said Desde when the report came over the
speakers.
'We stabbed two hearts," said Soren, "the rest they did to eachother."'With holes in their hearts?""Not them. Other youngmen.""Turn that thing off," yelled a voice from the dance floor. "This is aparty.""Switch out the voice but leave the ceefax," advised Malachi, "so we
can see if anything happens.""If you happen to be looking at the screen when it does," said Soren.
"All right, keep the sound low so only Soren can hear. She does boast
how hearing's not directional.""Nor optional. Why should I be on duty all night?"
They turned the screen down to news flash, timed for ten minuteintervals.
"Did you really kill those youngmen?" The question sounded naive
enough to warrant answering and the answer would echo and re-echo
as each party guest arrived and heard the news. Gossip might as wellrelay the explanation while it mulled over the event. Though Soren was
impatient of naivete. An ungenerous impatience and she disliked
herself for it. Surely it was good to believe in a city where strangers onstreet corners are not feared but asked directions, offered help. But what
fatal irresponsibility to behave as though that safe city were here.
'We have to kill," replied Soren, carefully.
"That reduces us to their level," the inevitable comeback.
"Yes," Soren agreed. "They have accomplished that. Except that we
can only kill. We cannot warn or wound, we have no symbol of powerwith which to make a threat."
The room absorbed her response and argued it out in corners. Soren
wan ted a respite from bravery in which to mourn the dead. The physicaldetails, the urgent intimacy which bound the killer to the killed, the fear
beforehand that she would not be strong enough, skilled as she was,were already filtering in her mind. She felt disturbed to see the elementsof future nightmares chisel themselves before her wakeful eyes.
"Bound, you and I, now," Malachi was saying.

35

"But not frozen," Soren returned. 'We can make of it what wewant." It was not conversation Soren wanted now but Essa. Essa warm,
naked and miraculous. Essa's skin was always miraculous when Soren
first touched it again. It made Soren feel real, entire, up against the very
boundaries of herself along the line that closed her in and joined her tothe world. The line of Essa's skin on hers.
'We killed two people," she would tell Essa. Not, 'We killed two
youngmen," as she must say, correctly, to the questioning Senectity.
Essa would accept "people." That was the way she thought.
Soren could groan, "How many of us must kill before this is over?"Essa would not add reprovingly, "How many more be killed?"
So often at these gatherings Soren, Malachi, Karlin and Desde sat by theback wall, hogging the radiant, throwing politics back and forth, while
the others danced and Essa hovered. Essa would interrupt with a trayof hot jumpcakes or a fresh pot of akyan, devoured with enthusiasm but
insufficient attention. Then she would throw down her views on thesubject under discussion. They would wait politely till she had finished,pick up the lost thread and continue. At first Soren would excuse herself
and invite Essa to dance, though it was well known that it terrified her
to enter the circling throng. Everyone would be careful, but Soren could
feel their heroic effort not to brush against her and it irked to place herself
so entirely in their protection. Essa refused each time. Soren trembling
and miserable was not the woman she had fallen in love with. So Essa
flirted with Desde, and when they danced discussion faltered, for Essa
well-partnered was exquisite. Her pavanne stately and graceful as an
ibis in flight over water. Then the table thought it glimpsed what Soren
might see in her.
It was comforting to miss Essa, to long for her humanism, herindiscriminate compassion.
"It was us or them," pursued Malachi, "and either way we'd lose.""Yes," Soren agreed, "but we can minimize the loss.""The way those bodies were cu t up, no one will imagine two fat oldwomen stabbed their hearts.""I'm not concerned with Citizens' Watch." "You should be. At
any moment ... ""You're right," Soren sighed. "At any moment, yes, any moment.
And I am concerned. I'm a concerned citizen. I don't want to live in acity where old women are despised, where fat is shredded, where thepride of youth skin each other's corpses. But I know about that, I'm partof a movement for change. What I don't know is who is coming withme."
"Or where we're going," finished Malachi.

36

"So many of the Senectity act like killing is sin.""They don't want to become people who have killed.""They want to keep their ideal of a good city by acting like it's here
already. Only young Ackademicks can do that, because they don't really
live in it."
"Perpetually passing through.""And occasionally glancing out the window.""So where is Essa tonight?" asked Desde, sitting down with them in
the radiant corner.
"I've no idea," snapped Soren. 'We were talking about the Senectity.""You and Essa had a row?""As it happens. I'll get a potof akyan. Could do with some ingestible
comfort."Soren stood up, felt for her cane and began to tap her way to the food
hatch. She moved slowly, steadily, so the others would see and get outof her way. Scarcely three steps later someone patted her hand andasked if she wanted help. Soren smiled graciously.
"I was going to fetch akyan.""You sit down. I'll get it for you."'We're fussy, I'm afraid," Soren smiled again. 'We like it hot andstrong, the water fresh, oxygenated and boiling.""I know what you mean," the other woman sympathized. '1'11 bringa selection.""And if there were any jumpcakes ... "'Works every time," Malachi mouthed to Desde.
"It's because she's blind," Desde shrugged.
'1 t' s because she's Soren," Malachi corrected. "Look at all the otherblind women lucky to get a place in the queue, let alone told when it's
their turn.""Soren does push it with the pathetic blind number," Desde continued.
"Nothing pathetic about her, only very desirous and very grateful,"
Malachi retorted. "You don't object when she appropriates the warmest
corner of the room.""And gets them to switch off the bass," Desde agreed.
Soren sat down again. Malachi poured.
"They feel uncomfortable to be caught out in a compromise," said
Malachi, pursuing the earlier theme. "That's why they're giving us a
hard time."'We all compromise," said Soren, "between the ideal and the street.
But there's no safety in pretending the street's negotiable. When37

someone's offering to slash you, you have to get them first.""How do you know you'll manage it?" threw in Desde.
"You only know you have to," said Soren.
"Skill, constant practice and a sharp knife help," added Malachi.
"But you're neither of you strong," Desde objected.
Soren's impatience rose. The mechanics were not new to Desde,
why was she too treating the killers as curiosities? How many of theSenectity had already killed? Soren pulled her knife from her sleeve.
"Here," she exclaimed, waving it at Desde. "It's springloaded andsonar equipped-tuned to the heartbeat. All you need is a steady hand."She pressed the trigger and the thin steel blade shot out like a laser, twofeet from the knife.
"It's best to getthem from the back," she went on. "Oldwomen can't
afford heroics." Above the noise of music and the dancing, women'svoices calling greetings, came a single, flawless soprano:"Here I stand with my knife in my hand."An alto joined it, then a mezzo, in perfect, abrupt harmony, the lastnote lying jagged on the air as the mezzo finished the round.
"I can't handle this," said Malachi.
"Let them sing," said Soren. "It's a hard life."
Those who called the Senectity extremist, not knowing what its
outer limits were, fearing it had none, rallied beneath the sarcastic
refrain. There was Soren, leader of the leaderless, who had personallycollected many of the oldwomen now assembled. There was the knife
clasped tight in her hand. What would she stop at? Sides were a whileforming, misgi vings great. This was the old woman who had left food on
the doorstep, in the alleyway, the hidey-hole, night after night until thereceiver, compelled by hope, exhaustion, curiosity, came out of her lair
to glimpse her benefactor's face. Or to sniff out traps. Sometimes, on
seeing another old woman, her short-lived hope would drain away; shewould hurry Soren inside, protesting that she had enough to worry her
without adding to her burden by looking out for someone else. Then
Soren could set to work. Sometimes the regular gifts were too much.
Soren would onl y know of herfailure when the food was left untouched;then she might smell the rank odor of a corpse, or be forced to conclude
that the oldwoman had fled to another hole where no one spied on her.
But the rest, and there were a hundred successes to each despair, were
slowly enticed out of hiding, told of the existence of many more likethemselves, offered safe refuge in the foothills of the Ackademy until
they found accommodation elsewhere.
It was said, also, that Soren would explain that the bonds of the38

Senectity were strong because the oldwomen loved each other, and todisbelievers she would demonstrate. This was as true as it was untrue,
Soren said. It depended how she felt about the woman in question andshe did not need disbelief to spur her on. The same, she added, could besaid of any relationship. Nor was Soren the onl y member of the Senecti ty
who sought to dig ou toldwomen from the wreckage, but she was the one
who was remembered and such was her personal renown that eventhose who were exhumed by other hands would boast that it was Soren
sought them out.
While the sides gathered, Soren was listening intently. Above theirheads, somewhere in the shafts and conduits of the building, she could
hear a rushing sound, like water. A burst pipe? But the noise wasmoving fast: something sliding down a tunnel. Soren tuned out the halland concentrated. A sudden loud bump. A bang.
"Citizens' Watch," yelled an accusing voice. "They followed you
here after the murders.""They'll get us. All in one go."''We're trapped."''Nonsense,'' said Malachi quickly, getting to her feet and turning
the picture on. "It's the screen; we tuned it to newsflash and it's abouttime for another one."
Soren walked toward the side door.
''Where's she going?""Don't let her out.""Something's fallen down the laundry chute, that's all," said Soren
calmly. ''Who's coming with me to check it out?"
Desde was first to reach the mouth of the chute. Lying on theconveyor belt were the bodies of two oldwomen.
"Revenge," she muttered. "So we have been found out.""Don't be ridiculous," snapped Soren. "A tooth for a tooth is for
those in equality. We are not on those terms with the city."
The bodies were warm. One groaned. With great strain, the top
woman was rolled off the other. It was Essa. The news sent fresh fears
rippling through the crowd: had the Apres-Ski Tower heard the commotion? But once it was learned that the women were alive, there was abustle of stretchers, trolleys and bandages purposeful enough to blunt
the edge of acrimony. Still quarreling nervously, groups of party guests
gathered to disperse: one old woman every five minutes. Though it was
the early hours of the morning, it did not do to flaunt even empty streetsin rowdy bevies.
Soren slept that night beside Essa, wondering what her lover had
39

been doing, glad that she was there. Things were as bad as they could
be without snapping. The city was closing in, the Senectity so scared
they were fleeing their own shadow. Euphoria at the sheer numbers ofoldwomen unearthed was giving way to dread that their great number
would wipe them out. Essa had been in an accident and she, Soren, had
killed. But despite these obvious ills, Soren felt easier than she had fora long time, and for a long time, as she lay awake listening for Essa's
breathing, she could not think why. She was happy, joyous; something
good had happened. At last she remembered. Karlin. Karlin had said
she was getting better.

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40

Laura Hershey

ProgressAt last, I thought,
we are making some progress;
at least, I thought,
we're talking about it now.
She brought it up, saying
she was interested,romantically- she wanted me
to know. But
then she said
she wouldn't know what to dowith mein a wheelchair, and hardly
able to move.
So I wrote a poem, offeringa few suggestions,and informing her of therelevant facts: That my skin
was ready to dance my skin and hers
could enjoy all kindsof choreography swing to our souls' orchestrations
That my thighs were alive, afire
between them melting
a swirling coreThat my mouthached for her water
one bright drop let's mix our surfs
over a new island, our island
Why not
when all our senses work fineto join hot
onl y wai ting
and wrestle in a whirlpool waltzing
Grab hold, said the poem for me
Then she said
that in relationships she was never
the aggressor.

41

So I wrote a poem
that when read a certain way
took charge
took her laid her
down turned her over and held us boundtogether up and down:nose to cheek to cheek to nosechin against neck belly by belly
legs locked
exposed centers pressed
together, wriggling
like movie hostages
and then let
our tiniest involuntary reactions
take over from there:
synapses exploding
sharp tender
like popcorn
forcing hot quick our breaths
carrying us
to a sudden darkness
Then she said
that she feared having me growto depend on her.
So I wrote a poem
disavowing any such need except
as suited the moment
which might be brief
and unique
as a web ofsaliva left spunby our tongues
No need,said the poem for me,
to be careful I can stand to hurt
I'll grow again from a new place
Now she says
she still doesn't know.
Someday I'll ask her
no paper between us
Girl, when you gonna get your shit together
so we can have this fling?

42

Nicky Morris

A Sunny Day

A

sunny day and no one to hold me and my cunt aching from doing
those exercises to strengthen that long muscle that goes all the way
around from your ass hole up and its name begins with a p and it's a longname I can't pronounce no more than I can do those exercises more than
two or three times. Pretend, the book said, your cunt is an elevator.
Squeeze up to the first floor ... second floor, then third floor. Then let theelevator come down slowly. Don't say nothing about people live in the
coun try don't go in elevators much- justthe one in that new mall-Ci ty
Center- with all those empty spaces where they expected shops, and it'sa glass elevator, just goes up from one floor to the next and back again
but everyone in the mall can see you doing it. Up and down. That's what
!imagined today in the car- getting that elevator up inside me and I wassure the driver in the car next to mine could see what I was doing frommy face and there I am with this elevator up to level two-in the
middle-and the light turns green and my car shoots forward and theelevator shifts down to first floor and then right out of my vagina andthere I am with this tingling feeling like something should rub my clityet
I have one hand on the steering wheel and the other on the stick shift andI'm still thinking I should get that elevator up through one and two to
third floor and then I look over and that man is still travelling in the nextlane-looking worried now, like he's scared my car is going to shiftsuddenly forward again which I must say I am too, like these exercises
seem to have a life of their own. The book said if I did it ten times threetimes a day for six weeks my sex life would improve but I'm not sure I'll
make it that long.

43

Marjory Nelson

Desire" There she goes!" Sophie flapped her russet wings crisply at the figure
rapidly retreating from her view. Always enchanted by the ongoingparade of women in front of their store window, Sophie particularly
loved the excitement generated by Floss's daily excursions back andforth to work.
"Don't you think I can see?" Dora snapped, her small supply ofpatience already exhausted by Floss's unremitting refusal to notice her.
The brown plush bear dropped to her knees, imploring the retreating
figure . "Don't you know I love Floss?" Pressing her soft nose into theplate glass window, she wailed, "Floss, oh, Floss, come back."
The woman of her dreams walked away.
Sophie and Dora were living in the window of a vibrator store on
24th Street in San Francisco, two blocks up the street from the variety
store where Floss worked. Every morning and evening, they watched
the woman walk by. But Floss never stopped to look in the window, not
at Dora, nor at Sophie the owl who perched next to her.
Compressing all the aching anguish she could summon into one
long soulful wail, Dora cried, "Oh, Floss, why don't you notice me? Why
don't you want me?""Take it easy, she'll be here tomorrow," Sophie stated in a matter offact way aimed at quieting the bear, but producing just the opposite
effect.
"Another day is gone. Hope is lost. I am abandoned.""C'mon Dora. Be brave.""Even though you're supposed to be so wise, it's obvious you don't
understand the depths of my feelings for Floss. You'll be sorry some day
when I die of a broken heart and fade awa y and there's nothing left of meat all." Big tears formed at the corners of the bear's black eyes anddripped down her round furry cheeks.
"You'll get soggy." Sophie flapped her wings vigorously in a futile
effort to change the atmosphere. "Don' t be so touchy. I was only stating
the truth.""Who needs it?" The fat little bear turned away from the window
and fell dramatically into the heavy gold curtains which separated the44front window from the interior of the vibrator store.
"For heaven's sake," Sophie said crossly and tucked her head undera wing.
In the 1970s, 24th Street with its rows of small shops, cafes, and goodrestaurants attracted an ongoing pedestrian traffic, supplying the bear
and the owl with constant entertainment. Day after day and month aftermonth, they scrutinized Floss and all the other women who walked up
and down the street. No one disturbed the little animals, because after
all, the main business of JOY'S TOYS was vibrators. The women who
walked in behind the heavy gold curtains were engrossed in otherpursuits.
In the beginnIng of her sojourn at JOY'S TOYS, the bear had enjoyedthis anonymity. Broken-hearted over her rejection from Joy s bed, Dorawas content to watch all the different women, so many sizes and ages,
varieties of skin color and costume. She found her endless excited
debates with Sophie engrossing as they considered the relative virtuesof each precious womanly attribute.
But then one spring day, everything changed. Floss walked by andDora fell in love. Although she had seen Floss almost daily for the past
three years, suddenly the world tipped over. Here was her beloved. In
an instant, the ongoing parade of women became meaningless. Where
once there were endless choices and variety, now, suddenly, there wasonly one person in the world: fat, gray haired, middle-aged, depressed
Floss.
Ever since that day in May, Dora had been trying to flag Floss's
attention. But with no success.
Dora could not accept defeat. She obsessed night and day, hour after
hour, carrying on about unrequited love, driving Sophie to distraction
with passionate tirades and heartbreaking grief.
"She has such a beautiful big soft belly," Dora said, her agonytransforming itself into lust. Rolling away from the curtains, she sat up
and shook the branch where Sophie rested. ''Wouldn't you like to touch
her? Wouldn't you like to feel that soft, gray hair, like fur? And thosebreasts! Hanging down like ripe sweet fruit. Couldn't you just curl up
there forever?"Hooting loudly to indicate her approval of Dora's change of mood,
Sophie jerked her head up out of her wing. "Dora, you are getting very
poetic. But! think you like that big soft belly because it is just like yours."''That's true," Dora said, rubbing both fists over her own roundfurry stomach. "That's why people love us." She smiled broadly.

45

''We're very fat." She patted herself appreciatively.
"People love fat bears, but you know they're afraid to love fat
women in the same way," Sophie said sadly, her golden eyes veiled.
"You've told me that a hundred times, but I just can't believe people
are really that stupid. They don't know what they're missing." Visionsof herself rolling blissfully over waves of billowing flesh danced in
Dora's head. "Floss is perfect. Who couldn't love her?"''Well, people can't be as wise as us. They have strange ideas.""It's just hard to understand. But Sophie, if people think Floss is too
fat to love, then she needs me more than ever. Oh Floss, when will you
notice me?"
Flopping onto her back, Dora filled all the space in the window withdesire for a soft, welcoming woman's body.
"For heaven's sake." But Sophie found it difficult to be stern. She
caught Dora's vision and melted into it.

!wO.MAtliws---------~~-,--:'
N'fC ~ NfWWIIER AK) CAU~ Of MNTS

I'll k*8 a one-year IUblcrlptton:-o .. 2 ftrIt-C1a1l maUo .. 5 IUppofttng
o '20 buIIMUIlnlmutton*---------------------C»t----------.. _a _ Om- 0110
Send 10 WQMANEWS. PO eo. no. Village :>lotion. N'IC 1001~
l_:::~~_:::::_~:_~_--~--------

46_______ _Sawnie MorrisYour Passing

What I should have said, was that I wanted you here with me.
What I should have told you was about the way the dirt comes down
at night through the straw and vigas,
and how when no one is horne I can't stop movingfrom the edge of the bed, and after a while the chair.
I am doing the dishes over and over,or emptying the trash.
I pull used clothes out of a bag unpacking
and shove them away somewhere else,
sift through papers and stack them on the table.
I can't stop moving.
I go for the phone, for you.
Small white digits that get me nowhere.
What I could have said was I love you and will go anywhere.
Let's take off for the Washington Monument
and call it only an adventure.
I picture you walking down the streets in a raincoat,
your dark hair falling straight down your back,the green grass cut evenly away from your passing.
I could live in an apartment nearby you
and read in the Square.
We could meet in corner booths
in delis, with checkered table cloths,
and talk quickly
in low voices.
In the evening make dinner. Exchange tastes . .
What I could have said wassee me through it, and down the wide crowded street.
We can wander through museums
like the relics of our first few months together.
The way I sometimes wander through themand hold to me other times

47

like things precious.
What I said was, it is morning and I'll miss you.
Your dark beauty,
your red eyes from crying and tangled hair,
the way you could go looking for your lost mother,some woman who gave you up at a high pricein a world where everyone said to.
What I am saying is love me.
Be that brave.
I'll be waiting for you there
under those orange lights by the freeway,
on the industrial side of town
where everything is vats and railroads
and barbed wire.
We'll go looking in the nightbehind untitled doors
for another world
with women.

48

zana

man plagueII.

1m having visions of hamburgers," i groaned as the last of the cars

disappeared down our hill.
"you know where that beef comes from? that's what they're bulldozing-""-the amazon jungle for. yes, i know. it's horribly politicallyincorrect and loaded with chemicals, but i'm still dying for a hamburger.""yeah. well, i could use a coke myself," ri vertree confessed. "wanna
drive into town?"
i grinned. "you bet. let's see if anybody else wants to go."the other two were sitting at our kitchen table looking a little spacy.
as we came in, i plopped into my wheelchair-an old friend i'd not seenin two months, now holding me again. river tree scooted her chair overand i rolled into the space beside her. inez said, "hey, we were justtalking
about taking a drive, getting a pizza or something."
we had just completed a two-month-Iong retreat on our land, forlesbians wanting to learn and practice survival skills. we'd taught suchthings on weekends, in smaller groups, but this retreat was a big
undertaking. it wasn't easy. we ate mostly foods we had grownourselves or could forage. we built small shelters out of branches andleaves. of course, it was summer and there was no danger of cold. i had
brought all my pillows and my foam pad, but still had more pain thani'm used to. or maybe just noticed it more because, without my wheelchair, i couldn't be very active. and itput me in a bad mood that although
we were all more dependent on each other than usual, i was the mostdependent. i had chosen to participate, though, and to do it without mychair, which would have snagged on every rock and crevice. having
gotten through it all, surely a hamburger was my due.
animated by the thought of junk food after two months of wild
greens, we piled into inez' old red car.
"well, we all grew up on it," rivertree rationalized. "it's probably
imprinted on our brain cells. and it hasn't helped to listen to 17 otherdykes freak out 'cause they couldn't get their snickers bars.""they were really a great group, though," inez said. "and some of49

them knew stuff i didn't, or figured it out with common sense.""yeah," juna agreed. "we should do this again next year for sure."
it felt strange to be off our 80 acres, to be on a road headed for
civilization. i still felt disoriented and wished we had done a more
focused closing ritual with the other wimin to center our energy andprepare us for this change.
strange, too, that the ''burger whiz" on the highway appeared to beclosed. what time was it, anyway? surely past eleven, on a tuesday
morning.
"it's been vandalized!" juna shouted from the back seat. "look, thatwhole glass side is smashed!""well," i shrugged, "one more victory for the amazon rainforest. i
can live without whizburgers. been doing it. so--on to the pizza place?"
there were hardly any cars on the highway. "is today some kind ofholiday?" i asked no one in particular.
inez said, "i don't know, but we better get some mail. weren't they
supposed to bring all our held mail today? I checked the box before we
left, and there was practically nothing there, after two whole months!"even in town we saw very little traffic, and most of the stores looked
closed. no people were out on the street. we began noticing more store
windows smashed.
"something really creepy is going on," juna shuddered. fIlet's getout of here."i suggested we look for a phone and call a friend of ours who lived
in town. inez made the call, then came back to the car looking worried.
"i kept getting a busy signal. not for her number, but even before i
dialed. a busy signal and a bunch of clicks and static. let's go on over toher house."
but no one was home. inez tried the door-locked. nothing looked
amiss, though.
juna kept me company in the car while the others prowled around.
it was a little backyard apartment behind an old white woodframehouse. no one appeared to be home in the front house either.
"i know," i said when the others got back. fIlet's go out to joni's."
joni was a het womon who lived a few miles the other side of town.
well, she said she was bi, but we thought of her as het because she lived
with a man. her social life was mostly dykes, though. rivertree had along-standing, unrequited crush on her.
we drove up joni's long bumpy driveway, which always got meright in the lower back. at least her house was directly at the end of the50

drive-no paths to walk, and no steps to climb. almost wheelchair
accessible, except the house was so cluttered with joni's woodworking
projects you couldn't have maneuvered around once you got inside. i
hadn't brought my chair anyway, thinking we were just going to theburger whiz. it was a relief to spot joni's car, then see her in the garden,
looking up from the tomato plants she was staking. she ambled toward
us with that swaying walk of hers, her face glowing.
"it's wonderful to see you all," she beamed. "come in. i'll put sometea on.""joni," inez began, glancing around the house, which was in its
normal state of jumbledness, "have you been to town lately? 'cause wewere just through, and ... "joni, fussing with the teapot, looked up and waited for inez to continue.
" .. . and, well, no one was around. looks like a ghost town. somestores have their windows busted out."joni kept staring expectantly. "oh," she said slowly, rubbing hercheek. "my god, you don't know. i forgot you were doing that survival
thing. the whole time. wow. i can't believe . . . wow."
she just kept standing there holding the teapot and staring. we were
all staring back. rivertree screamed, "what? t"joni rubbed her face again. "your survival thing just ended?" inodded. "and it started when?""june second," said inez.
"well," said joni carefully, flit must have been only a few days later.
this . .. thing ... started spreading ... like an epidemic. killing people.
well, killing men. and boys. the little kid down the road, who used tocome ride horseback with me, he was one of the first."
juna sat-almost fell-down next to me on the couch. nobody else
moved a hair. i wondered if i was really hearing this.
"they didn't know how it got started. then they figured out that it
was this chemical that the government was testing secretly. they'dreleased it into the air over a couple of cities-it was supposed to makepeople more docile and suggestible. instead, it interacted with anotherchemical already in the air-from smog-to form this deadly compound. but deadly to males only. it seemed to go right for the ychromosome. not a single female has shown signs of illness, let alone
died.""how many men have died?" i asked.
again she stared, as if we were all just landed from another planet.

51then, quietly but quite distinctly she said, "all of them."juna jum ped up and started pacing around the room, looking out thewindows as if searching for an escape. i found myself unable to speakor even swallow. rivertree gasped, "al/?" and inez echoed, "you' retelling us all men have died from some chemical?""i wish you could find out more gradually." joni stood holding theunlit match above the woodstove, with the teakettle in her other hand.
she took a couple of long, deep breaths. "that's just how it hit us all, likea boltoflightning. i heard about it one night on the news, and by the next
day thousands had died. all the deaths happened within a week. thenso much else happened. seems crazy, but i' d almost forgotten the deaths.
i guess i'd made my peace with all that, till you all reminded me. now
i'm back there like i was at first, knowing how you're feeling, not being
able to grasp it." she stopped, her voice breaking. again she breatheddeeply, and finally said all in a rush, "when mel died, then i grasped it.""mel?" i looked around. the place never had reflected mel verymuch. now he was dead and his absence didn't show.
joni's eyes were distant. "yes, he died early. one night he wasburning up with fever- 'man plague,' that's how it starts-and in themorning he was just lying there next to me, cold." she had recited thisin a rather methodical way, and now she stopped and looked into space.
she shook her head, blinked, and continued, "i couldn't believe it. i nevereven imagined mel dying. he was only 41."
juna came and enfolded joni in a hug. joni smiled raggedly, trying
to allow juna's caring in. for a moment, i, too, wasn't in this place ofhorror, but in the warmth of their hug. i liked seeing them like thatboth big wimin, strong-spirited wimin, juna very dark and joni very
light. although few words ever passed between them, i had always
sensed that they shared a quiet affection. i knew it didn't threaten mylovership with juna. she was as monogamous as they come, so i freely
enjoyed her lovingness toward others. now, watching them, i suddenly
felt so grounded that i knew all this was real. i was not dreaming someincredible dream. we were all here together and this moment was real.
joni went on, "i grieved hard, for a week or so, screaming andsobbing, hiking these hills till i'd fall down exhausted, hating theuniverse for pulling the rug out from under me. then my grief was over.
i guess it helped that i grieved so hard, didn't hold anything back. after
that, i could see that mel did have a good life, and maybe it was okay it
wasn't longer. as far as me-well, sure, i miss him, buti won't pine away.
we really led our separate lives."

52

she heaved a big sigh, lit the kindling, and set the teakettle on thestove. "when he was first teaching me carpentry, i looked up to him andwe had the fire of teaching and learning between us. these past few
years, since we finished building the house, it's been kind of dull. i
realized we really didn't know each other. i was drifting more toward
being with wimin. but mel was still here, we still got along okay. there
was no reason to end it. but now it's ended by this plague thing. this may
sound awful, but in a way i feel freed."inez had come to si t beside me on the arm of the couch. i put my handon her thigh and stroked a little as we listened to joni.
"but let me tell you what the man plague has been like. if i can. somany died all at once. i still can hardly believe i lived through it. the firstnews reports started coming in: men dying everywhere, all over theworld. i thought about that 'hundredth monkey' idea, wondered if itreally was a chemical, or maybe it was some kind of mass consciousness
that struck everywhere at once. that was the only way i could make any
sense out of it.
"some men castrated themselves, but that didn't help. it wasn't
hormones the chemical attacked-it was their very maleness, the ychromosome. some men hid: locked themselves in apartments or ran towilderness areas. but you really couldn't hide. it somehow spread
rapidly in the air, all over the world. we don't really understand howthat happened, we just know it must have because the chemical was only
released in two areas of the united states, yet men everywhere died.
there may be some that survived somewhere, but we don't know since
we stopped getting news reports.""no news reports?" rivertree's voice was high and sharp, as if she'd
finally found something she could make sense of. she picked up joni's
little radio and clicked it on. there was static or silence everywhere on
the dial.
"well, of course the whole world's gone topsy-turvy. somewhere
there may be medical researchers continuing to work on the disaster, butreally, why bother? the men died, quick, and we all had to pitch in andbury the bodies, and take over all the work men had been doing-andgrieve besides. no wimin have died or even gotten sick, so why waste
precious energy worrying about something that's over and done with?
we have to think about today, and tomorrow. we've got some big
problems on our hands. most of the truckers and oil industry workers
were men. so we don't have much fuel available-we can't run our cars,
and we don't have trucks to bring food to our stores. anyway, big

53

agribusiness was mostly men. sure, men ate more than half the food, but
we're still having a food crisis 'cause of the uncertain supply. at first all
the food stores got looted. wimin broke in and took all they could carry.
then, we started having neighborhood meetings." she gestured toward
the radio. "that's mostly the kind of news we're getting now: whatgroups are working on community food supplies, who can operate apress, or a tractor or"-she gestured again at the radio- 'broadcasting
equipment. all those jobs wimin have been kept out of.
"what i've been doing is carrying news between neighbors on
horseback, and every few days i ride to the house of a worn on with a CB,
and she relays our news to the radio station. by the way, i hope you all
have the gas to get you home, 'cause every gas station in this area has soldits last. we have a small supply put away for community use, in case of
emergency, that's all."i felt so stunned i wasn't sure i was taking in all that joni was tellingus. too much, too much! oh yeah, i had wished for a world without
men-probably we all had. but to have it really happen-outofthe blue!
suddenly i laughed out loud, i guess kind of frantically, recalling the oldsaying from my straight days, "can't live with them, can't live withoutthem." these goddamn men were causing us problems even by theirabsence!
inez leaped up with a cry.
"oh! carlos! i've gotta get to a phone!"she stopped at the door, turned, and gave joni a pleading look. joni
gazed back sadly.
"her brother," i said. "oh. i guess my father's dead, too."
we looked around at each other. for rivertree it would be the son she
had co-mothered wi th an ex-lover. for juna it would be nobod y. she wasabout the most separatist dyke i'd ever met.
juna murmured, "my grandpa. that old man taught me about fixing
things. we used to work for hours on old clocks and stuff, down in thebasement." the wetness in her eye caught the light. "well, he must havebeen in his 90's. i've been knowing i'd get the word he was dead one ofthese days. if that's the price of having all the other pricks die, iguess i'll
pay it."rivertree was scowling and shaking her head. i guess a child is thehardest of all--even a child not of your own body, who you rarely see.
like juna, i could give up my father for a good cause. he'd had two heart
attacks and i'd expected him to go pretty soon-had even wished hewould, so it would be over with. but still . . . i wished i could have seen54

him one more time. i wondered if, really, he was dead. if all men had
really died.
"what about the human race?" rivertree shouted. "it'll die out!" sheglared accusingly at juna and then at joni as if they were responsible.
"well, there are sperm banks, you know." joni sounded tired,shaken, but carrying on. "we'll have to portion that sperm out carefully
and gradually. and they say a certain percentage of births have always
been parthenogenetic. it looks like we'll have to readjust to having amuch smaller population, and to having a lot more old people than
young. but the world was facing serious overpopulation.""yeah," i offered, "i used to wonder how mother earth was going tosolve that one. nuclear war, i thought. i do like this way better."river tree gave me a nasty look and burst into tears. inez put an arm
around her and they went outside.
joni poured hot water into the teapot.
"this is chamomile, from my garden," she said. "maybe it'll help
soothe everyone's shock. i know it's hard to have to deal with all this.""you seem well-reconciled to it, you steady old taurus, you," imanaged to joke.
"yes, and i've hardly had to try. isn't that funny. somehow this has
given me some direction in my life that i was lacking. sure, i'm sorry
mel's gone, and my brothers, and the guys down the road, and little boys
who might have grown up less sexist than their fathers. but it's kind of
exciting to have a whole fresh start, a whole new society to make. we canmake it what we want. reagan's dead, and bush, and the whole line-up
of guys that were supposed to take over if the president died. nearly
everyone in congress was a man. i don't know what's happening inwashington- if anything! but i know what's happening here, how
we've already started community gardens and an exchange point forfood and seeds and clothes and tools. sure, some wimin are hoarding
and freaking out, some wimin are still in terrible shock and grief andsome don't know how to live withouttheir men taking care of things. but
i'm really amazed at how many of us have just pitched in and started
doing what needs doing.""wars!" juna burst out. "the pentagon's gone. the generals havedied!""and most of the soldiers, too," joni smiles. "so we're finally out ofcentral america. of course, all the central american men are gone, too. iwonder how wi min in other countries are taking this. i suppose, like us,
they're doing whatever they can to keep on. what else can you do? at55

least that's one thing wimin have been well-trained for-keeping on no
matter what.""my sister," i groaned. "her first husband died in an accident two
years ago. it shook her whole world. now she's lost this husband, too.
and they were really well-suited to each other. both jewish, bothteachers, the same age, and both scorpios. she'd never found anybody
who could keep up with her sexually before, and that's made her a muchhappier person.""what's her phone number?" inez was standing in the doorway,
grinning.
i threw a pillow at her. "yeah, well, i'll give it to you. she just might
like you.""does she go for girls?" she threw the pillow back, hard.
"i guess she'll have to-or quit being a scorpio." i lobbed the pillow
back at her-we were both laughing wildly.
rivertree came back in. juna went over and kneaded her shoulders.
"i'm sorry," i said to her. "i guess i just don't know how to deal withall this."joni handed around cups of tea. we were all silent a few moments,
sipping, thinking our own thoughts.
"what can we do out where we live?" inez wondered out loud.
juna said, "i think we just got finished doing something. maybe we
can do more of the same.""sure," agreed joni. "most wimin need a crash course in foodforaging pretty bad right about now. and though there's no housing
shortage-with half the population and more than half the property
owners gone-some.houses aren't getting electricity or water. garbage
isn't being collected. wimin need to learn how to live withou t dependingon those city services, at least for awhile.""but how will we get to them, or them to us, without cars?" iwondered.
"more slowly, looks like," said inez. "on foot, on horses-how abouta covered wagon? well, i guess horses won't be easy to come by . ..
they're probably in great demand ... well, we can give it some thought.""why don't you stay here a few days?" joni suggested. "there will
be a broadcast tonight that we all can listen to; maybe that'll give yousome more ideas of how to hook in to the transition efforts.""i need to do something-now," river tree said. "do you have somegarden work that needs doing?""sure-always! and i'm expanding it a lot right now. there are so56many wi min needing food. it would be wonderful if you dug a new bed
or two. there's also soil to sift and manure to rake, if anybody else isin teres ted."
everyone but me headed eagerly for the door. joni looked at me,
thought a minute, and added, "and there are seeds to plant, and beds toweed, and, let's see ... some dried herbs to be stripped."i chose the weeding. it felt good to sit on the soil, to tug hard at the
deep-rooted weeds, then feel them finally give. i tossed them onto thestraw around the plants to make a deeper mulch. some of the weeds, ofcourse, were good eating, and these formed a separate pile for tonight's
dinner.
so many thoughts spinning around in my head. a whole newworld-one where hard physical work would be needed. it had taken
me years to find my place in the lesbian country scene-or rather, tocreate a place where none e~isted before. small changes still knocked me
off balance. like worrying, now, about how i'd do anything usefularound here for the next few days without my wheelchair. what about
the bigger changes we' d soon have to face-an unimaginable number ofthem? well, i could start where joni had, at ground level. literally.
touching the reality of earth, feeling comfort and continuity there. wewould plant and harvest into another season.
the sun felt hot and good. we all worked barebreasted. now, it
would be possible to drive back through town with our shirts off. now,
we could go where we wanted when we wanted, naked if we wanted,
and not fear arrest or rape. we could cover our bodies only for warmthor decoration, like we did on our own land-not because we had to. i
added a particularly nice lambsquarter plant to the dinner pile. so muchdifferent. so much new.
i looked up at joni, hoeing compost into a new bed. a slow smile
spread across her face and i realized she was returning mine. beyond heri saw juna smiling at me, too.

SageWoman'.

c,gc....
o e oic ate i) to
the Goooess." in e u e u;y UJorna n$4.S0/mmJph :P.O. UOll5 130
San l a er UI CA 9500]

57

Catalina Rios

The Three Tongues

Led to the backs
of some women arebloody sorrows,
leech-like troubles
tha t make them weak.
In every strong woman

there are three tongues
all in contradiction,
silenced during the day
by a heavier hand.
At night
minutes before bed
the strong woman
must unbraid
the three tongues
and let them speak.
Only then can she sleep.

58

Donna Allegra

A Toast of BabatineShe

still crosses the waters everyday. Babatine riding in a slim boatslices the waves under her direction. She looks like a short Masai - theface dark, full; planed cheeks; a hawk's fierce eyes, a horse's noble
strength and her own enchanting grace.
I am a rider of the waters. This work I do for my town's keep.
Lafuseton is a gather town where women who make cloth can exchange
their life patterns with women who shape tools or the forms of their
imaginings into wood. Women who net the sea can change meals withwomen who plow and pick from the earth, and everyone trades scentsand beads to adorn themselves and those they love.
I was born here and count twenty women kin. I am at peace with myfamily. We work in Isafore house to be in harmony with ourselves, witheach other, and with other women in the ways of the Goddesses. I've
lived through 19 dry seasons and 20 wet. Launtsan says the women
upriver count their time in moons and blood. A woman ages by moons
until her aspect turns and she herself bleeds, then she counts her own
cycle. My short Masai, Babatine, would claim an age around 240, whichby our count, is 20 seasons, wet and dry.
Lafuseton is such a busy place that our servants made it law that wedance and play and eat and make music together four times each season.
This custom has been our rule as long ago as all the way back to ourancestor, Donasim, who came here when women first decided to livewith themselves. That was over six generations ago. There had been awar where all the world was called to fight. The women who said "no"to the call left to find a better way to live. From the nesting homes theybuilt with each other, our nation took her being.
The first ancestors, who fashioned many of the ways that we live,
decided there would be no rulers among women. We select servants
each season. Their work is to sow the field where women plant andharvest our lives together.
In my kin group, we are musicians. People speak of the Isafore
family as far as the Mango port, 10 days river travel away. That so muchgift has settled in one family is praise to the Goddesses. We of Isafore
house were to lead in the drumming, piping, playing on strings from our59many voices for both nights ofloosing. Babatine had come over the waterin the second part of the morning, as she always does. She steered
towards our shore and I left my pluck harp to pull her in.
The rider of the waters guides women into shore safely. We keep
large sharp rocks by our banks so that strangers' boats can be torn,
damaged to the drowning point if they mean us harm. No family has
ever forgotten that people once came to our shores, stole away the
women who went out carrying the welcome, and then quickly left us
open and bleeding for the family so strangely gone. It had been during
a prayer time when all but a few women were meditating and praying
to the ancestors and Goddesses. Launtsan and many other women think
it was men who'd come to our part of the world, but no one has everactually seen a man for over six generations. We remember, though, andhave made ourselves ready should there be a next time.
It is common for unknown women to come to us from across thewaters and from lands far away. The courtesy among women is to wait
until invitation is extended to come into a people's home space, then awarm welcome is spread across a full table. Any woman who doesn't
know the hard edges we put in the water is safe because natural custom
protects her. When strangers or familiars come, a rider of the waters
swims out and leads them through a safe passage.
I saw Babatine coming-I had actually been looking for her- andour stilled shores pulled her in, whereas on busy days she passes us byfor her downriver destiny.
I spoke to her in Matriby, the language that links one people toanother, and she answered in Lafuso. I was surprised to discover that
she is one of us. I told her to follow me to an opening, and I swam on myback, showing off and wanting to look at her. I knew she'd be strongsteering a boat demands that your back and arms be able to match thewaters wave for wave-but by all my family, ancestors, and humbly to
the Goddesses, she was more handsome than if she'd been my twin. We
came quickly to shallow water and sandy bottom. We easily put her
slender boat by my sleep-in, which is close to the opening I guided her
through.
"It seems so soon for a loosing," she said with speech that is slower
than we use. I invited her to come stay with my family for the day andevening. She smiled, more beautiful than any of the handsome Masai I
had ever seen.
She told me, "I'm Babatine, an informer for the fisher towns. I
seldom come to Lafuseton because you do trade and don't need to know
60the water movements. You travel like a fish," she said almost shyl y. And
then: "Have you ever been netted?"
We both laughed. She liked me at once, as I did her. We liked eachother more as the morning stretched and went on to meet the day.
Babatine left in the early afternoon to tell the other fisher towns and her
upriver home that there was a loosing, to come to Lafuseton to share in
the joy: there'd be no trade this day. In the early evening, she came to mykin house. Some other rider of the waters showed her to the long hut
where we of Isafore family were getting ready with ourselves for thenight.
I was already in beads and wore a flower's field of colors. My pants
were loose at the legs for dancing and firm around the ankles and waist.
I wore the soft bee cloth on my forearms, five strings of beads atmy waist,and a single yellow strand criss-crossing each breast around my back.
My brown skin was touched to a red sheen by each morning's sun, andI was shining also, with the desire that licked at me when I thought ofBabatine.
I felt a lot of pride over my new friend. It is common to bring
beautiful strangers to the kin house, but Babatine seemed special. Her
body scents were musk and coconut, and of course: the river. Her life
energy was still and deep and refreshing like the waters, and again, shereminded me of myself: I scented of somali and vanilla and a quietnessthat slowed women when they approached me.
I am not a social woman, which is why I chose my work as a rider ofthe waters. I like to be around women, but not so close with them thatthey can pull on my energy for their talk and chatter. I like to be alone
with my thoughts and their music. My difficult kinswoman, Launtsan,teases that I'll never know a love-mating song since I can barely sing acivil song of friendship. The way I see things, I'll never sing sorrow anddisappointment and weary peacemakings. Launtsan is forever spillingtears for some aspect of her many love-friendships.
Launtsan called me out back to help her attend to the strings andtones of our pluck harps. I wanted to go walking with Babatine throughthe fruit trees of Lafuseton, but clearly this was to be my day's gift time.
All women know that at least once during the day, and on some days,
many times, one must give a little more than seems fair. It is best to give
generously with a minimum of resistance. Ibadly wanted to beg off fromtask with the talkative Launtsan, but with a salute to the wiser ones Who
guide our lives, I made ready to stay as long as it took to oil the wood andclean the strings.

61

After a few minutes, the question popped into my head and out of
my mouth, "How is it that women know their love-mates?"
Launtsan didn't rush with her usual eagerness to talk in her answer.
Nor did she remind me I didn't have enough share in friend-loves toconsider taking on a mate-love. She played some notes on the pluck harpand said it would happen with me just as it has for every other. I would
one day be full in my season, my life so ripe my cup had no room tocontain all the juices. She said a woman would tap me atthe height of thisseason and love would latch and pour out of me, seeking to empty into
her. "And you will want to give her everything," she told me, and I felt
a great quiet. lt seemed impossible that I, the almost unfriendly Cicatoo,
would want to do any such thing. I liked to stay alone with my pluck
harp and reed flute . When other women looked for one another to spend
their loose time, Ileft them to be apart with myself. I couldn't see wanting
to give everything, by which Launtsan meant time: the river whose flow
is our lives.
Launtsan continued, "Everything from life blood to tears, for it will
be a mighty pouring of sweetness-one no woman would want to stop."
I held her words, a little afraid, and though tof Babatine; but I just wanted
to spend time with her. I wasn't ready to tap my life flow and be carriedaway on a river.
Launtsan told me more. She said, JIlt will happen many times indifferent ways, but there will be a few where the juice runs so strong you
will be lifted in its stream, ready to go wherever this river of your own
savory fruit would take you. And at the season's end, the bottom of thecup will show a flower- its seed potent and meant for planting. In timeand fertile soil, it will bloom-the season ripens to let the river flow
again. And it will leave you, Cicatoo, just as the morning makes way tothe high noon sun and as the evening stands aside for the healing
darkness-which graciously slips away at dawn. You may try to stop its
passing, try to hold this aspect a little longer, but as the moon will change
her faces, this tide of ambrosia will pass through its cycle and take thenext shape. And that form will unveil for you only after the well has
drawn clear to the bottom of the cup."
Launtsan stayed me too long, as she always did, but this was a new
way that she told me more than I wanted to hear. The bells of loosing
were starting their song. First one clear note, then a duet for a time, thentwo more voices rang harmony, and on and on. I could feel the joy ofmusic and dancing and women starting to surge through me. I took myplace near my family women, who smiled with a new, sly laughter. Thiswas because of Babatine, I was sure.

62

It started wi th the drums this time. Al ways for me, it begins with one
instrument that hinges to my rhythm. This night, Fatusa of the million
hands and even more rhythms pulsed through me. My fingers dancedon the pluck harp, greeting each of the rhythms my family called.
I looked for Babatine, saw the sweat shining from her black-berryripeness. Her colors were turquoise and blood amber. My foremindslipped and slowly it dismantled, strewn luxuriously across the waters.
The loosing always had me awakened, yet melting from one state intoanother. Who was this rugged angel stroking the earth before me?
Babatine danced and I played my song to reach deep in to the heart of her.
I welcomed the winds as they blew me high and low. The music wassilver and sweet. I saw how we were all each other's treasures. For me,
the Goddesses' gifts were other women and music. I felt the swelling oflove for my family, my kin favorites, our home, our nation. I was dancing
through it all, seeing the women like water, rise in layers, swell, breakinto waves and wash our shore. I saw the women like trees come green,change their colors, drop leaves, and stand firm through every season.
Six generations ago ancestors had reached out on faith. The sisters whocame before us had believed in women and now the harvest was thisnight's glory. Emotion trembled on our voices making the chords richer
and more full. The drums changed time and it started all over again. The
rhythms were skipping nimble as light, hooking me to their wake. The
strength I called on to match them was the strength everyone of us hadwe just kept moving along the path laid out to us.
And Babatine: I saw her and wanted to hold her, then, as Iloved her.
I saw her smooth crystal skin, the sap shining. Laughter was running allover her face; I saw her released into white light, stunning the stars. The
rhythm of her thighs matched the music in my hips. I felt myself
growing, as if I would push through my skin. Coming up to a new leveland peeling through my flesh was more of the person that I am.
How can I tell the wonder and pleasure and ease of passage that took
us to lie the night together? She taught me so much, just being easy withherself. I told her everything-the truth I knew about whatever she
asked. While we talked and held one another and dreamed, the music
fa ded, the sun replaced the moon on the throne of hea ven. It seemed we
two were forever.
I felt peaceful, friendly, and vigorous when I left her to set out themorning meal in my family house. I moistened and throbbed at thethought of Babatine as I selected the fruits with a new tenderness for the
women who would peel apart their skins and suckle a ripe sweetness.

63

I returned to my sleep-in and was shy and unsure and glad to see her.
Time had stopped as we went through the night, and now we were into
the morning.
That afternoon, I asked Launtsan to help me clean and oil the strings
and wood of our instruments before I stored them. Ordinarily, I was
happiest doing this task alone. After a time, I spoke. I formed my words
slowly and carefull y, because I was full of Baba tine li ving in me now, andon her way upriver. I was brimful with moisture as I asked Launtsan,"why do we open our hearts if it just makes room for sadness to fillthem?"
Launtsan took her time before answering me. She studied her handunder the water and stirred up some sand. "Did you like the night of theloosing?" I told her yes, feeling the tears rock me. "Did you like it a lot?"
My word was very wet and choked, but it was still the same: yes. ''Was
it a time very precious to you, little Cicatoo?" I was pouring too muchwater to shape any words now. ''Well then, that's why we open: to takein the sweetness, to be made able to brew more of it."And so I see her slice the waters everyday, steadying herself in the
waves that seem to part at her directions. With a cup full to overflowing,
I am more careful about how I carry my brew, but I can now say it out
loud: I would gladly pour to the woman who taps me at root again.
And if she turns to cross the river into my stream, I will love her. If
she walks over the land, my love has set and stayed and rocks me no
matter what path Babatine takes. And if she sails past my stream andleaves me stroking with my brew, I have tasted such a mighty fountainof sweetness. The waters have not turned bitter. The sadness wrinkles
the surface, but I am more stirred with love. My waves will rise to
someda y meet a woman whose stream can mingle wi th mine to sta y, andwe will flow and rock the sweetness clear to the bottom of the cup.

64

Scarab Goddess Max Dashu

65

Christian McEwen

Doubles

They told me she had drowned, and I
believed them. I saw her body,watched them put it in the ground.
But now she's back again
her profile, her bleached hands
reappearing in a Russian violinist,a Peruvian child.
She follows me dissolving
through the city streets, in and outof the coloured shadows. Today
she is from Manchester, tomorrow
she is an old woman.
I am exhausted by her cheekbones
and the turn of her head.
There are too many of her
at too many times.
And I am a single I, eschewing comfort.

GG

Sheila Ortiz Taylor

Sou thern Exposure

We sit silent
side by side on the couch
before this waning firein the house we have madewith our own hands
and my mind dreams down
like a diver descending
until I reach the rippled
fill beneathstrewn with bent nails
and bits of blue chalkthen sink down further
to the slope of native earthgone pale like a wound too longcoveredThe day the truck backed up
and spilled the sandinto gold breasts
we knew we had begun.
We drew rooms with sticks
had pizza deliveredand slept sound in theinvisible house
We took a long time in the
depressions of sandhandling the smooth plastic
pipes like ancestral bones
we laid down for eternity
When the concrete ran like lava down the chuteand into our forms
67

you said you believed in concrete.
I wanted to write sonnets just there
where the moon had spilled her sepia face.
You said you believed in sonnets too.
We made love in wet cement
and slept in the bathtub
under the tree
. We who had never measured anything before
believing in concrete and sonnets
awoke with tape measures in our hands
reckoned square feet,cubic feet, running feet,sawed lumber into blocks
that miraculously fit
drilled holessnapped lines
chalked hieroglyphics
on beams
and at lastraised the creature's bones
In Florida heat
our feet sticking to black tar
we nailed the roof
moving slow
like moon-walkers in space
Inside we grew used
to seeing through walls
to passing sandwiches
and wry comments
through airy division
to kissing between studs
sweet as a forest
We delayed sheetrock
put your old blue rug
on the living room floor
and perched on nail keg chairs
drinking coffee.
Your mother brought a plantlaughed at our "southern exposure"
68

Then the rains came.
We hurriedhoisting the heavy sheets
bending in our hands like damp cardboard
their chalky innards wanting to spill and return to dust.
We held them up and nailed them down
and square by square we taped the rooms
against ourselves
But time has shown us when to take our ease.
We sit here now before this firein the storm-lulled houseremembering back through the craftthat taught us both how
to see through walls

the radical femimst magaZinert!:JOId
ISSUE 11'.h'• Feminism and AIDS
Ln
• Interview with Janice Raymond• Taking direct action: women rise in resistance• Against nationalism: the betrayal of Algerian women• The new defeatism: Is the Future Female? reviewed• Writing our own history: Northern Ireland• and the start of a new series: women's reflections on
the state of the movement
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Available on tape
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Norwich, Britain NR2 lAX.

69

Bernice Mennis

Without Will

Two times I scared the heron
the sound of movement
sending it into flight.
Both times I felt regretbreaking the quiet
shaking the still reflectionin the quiet pond.
The third time I went
wi th purposeto see the wings
expand with graceful flight.
No heron appeared.
You cannot look for a heron.
It comes upon you unaware

when you walk
another roadwith open eyes.
Haiku the heron
appear when they will
without your will.
The fourth time
I saw an image:the leaf suspended
rising fallingno difference.
Without will
the haiku the heron
appear.

70

Michelle D. Williams

Moondancer

Tovah secures the ship access, then saunters down the ramp. She
pauses on the dock to look casually around. No sign of customers. She
hopes her passengers have not run into any. Tovah runs her fingers
along the silver skin of her ship as she passes the rear of it.
"All fueled, Captain. Need a cargo loader?" the old dock hand asks.
''Not yet," Tovah replies.
"Good cargos found at The Lady.""Thanks." Tovah flips a credit through the air. The man pockets it.
Tovah strides off in the direction of the strip, absently fingering her i.d.
bracelet.
Other gaudily dressed spacers, captains and crew, pass her in thedim gray corridors. The sign above the bar shows a veiled woman withold fashioned Terran paper money in her hands. The gothic script reads
The Green Lady. ''Must be the place," Tovah mutters.
She ducks through the open doorway, then stands looking around amoment, getting her bearings. She glances at the subdued decor of thebar and its clien tele; this is obviousl y a smugglers' dive. Am I that easy topeg, or did that old grip make a lucky guess, Tovah wonders. Her pause
allows other patrons a time to suss her out.
Kel watches the tall woman in the black flight suit enter. He notes
her blonde hair, purposely worn short to display the navigation implants at the base of her skull. By this he knows she's pilot of her own
hype-ship. He continues to watch as she moves through the crowd.
Tovah steps up to the bar. An old woman looks up at her frombehind the polished wood counter. "Coffee, black," Tovah says. The oldwoman smiles as she sets the mug down. Tovah slides a credit disctoward her.
A large man takes the seat nextto Tovah. He stares a moment before
she turns to him.
"I'm Kel." He raises a huge hand in greeting.
''Tovah,'' she raises her own palm.
"Gamble, Captain?"''Not tonight," Tovah shakes her head.
"Table?" Kel asks, certain now that she is on business.

71

Tovah glances around again. "Fine."
She follows him past the garners into the back of the bar, wherebusiness is transacted. They slide into the privacy booth. He activates it~
muffling the activity around them.
"I'm a procurer," Kel states.
"And you assume I need your services?""You talk like a pirate." He sees her hand tighten on her mug.
Tovah raises her brows. She neither agrees with nor denies theimplied question. "How do I know you're not Customs?""You don't." Kel smiles, the warmth surprising in his craggy face.
Right answer, friend, Tovah thinks, smiling also. "No drugs, I don't
deal misery," she says.
"Human cargo. What kind of ship you got?" Tovah looks annoyed
and does not reply. "Customs wants this one real bad.""Type II, fast, some defenses. What's my destination?"''New Terra," Kel answers.
Thank the Goddess, Tovah thinks. She says only, "Dock 72-C, by
1800." Kel rings for drinks.
''To the Lady," Tovah says, knowing he'll think she means Lady
Luck.
"Good trip, Captain," Kel says, raising his glass. As Tovah wends
her way toward the door he scoops up several credits.
Tovah makes her ship ready for departure. Doing by rote all theroutine tasks of securing possessions and checking systems. Her mind
drifts to the last time she saw Isolde. Familiar face creased with anger
and pain, dark eyes shut tight. She goes over their last argument in her
mind.

Not wanting the tears to show, Tovah swiped at her eyes with the back of her
hand. Then ran her fingers through her short blonde hair. She sat legs drawn up,
chin on knees, refusing to meet Isolde's gaze.
Isolde sprawled in the chair opposite Tovah, using one toe to swivel the chairslowly back and forth. Isolde gave up trying to make eye contact and gazed out
the viewport to her right.
Tovah glanced up, but could not see Isolde's face. The other woman's longdark hair had fallen to cover her profile. Tovah tried to remember how this one
had started. Some small comment ofhers, blown all out of proportion. This was
happening a lot lately. But this was one argument that wasn't going to be easily
dropped. Tovah knew Isolde was wrong. She was not trying to run away fromanything. She had to work. Someone did . Poets don't earn much credit. Even72

one as good as Isolde. Free drinks don't pay docking fees. Tovah wished Isolde
would go back to piloting. It would be easier if they were working together again.
She couldn't see why Isolde objec.ted to her smuggling. The pay was enough toallow them long stretches between jobs. Maybe after this run they could spendsome time on Isolde's home station.
Tovah reached out with her mind, searching for a way through Isolde's
barriers.
"Get out of my mind!" Isolde thought. The anger in it was like a slap.
Tovah gasped. "Get off my ship," she said. Tovah stomped to the head,
slamming the door behind her. She blew her nose and put the tissue in thedisposal. Tovah splashed cold water on her face, then stood looking at herself inthe mirror. She had to lean over slightly because the mirror was hung too low forsomeone her height. It suited Isolde's size better. Tovah noticed her black flightsuit was dusty and sweat stained.
She went back into the cabin to change. The room was empty, of course.
Tovah turned to the bunk, saw the locker standing open, her lover's blue dUffelgone. "Shit!" Tovah hit the locker door with her fist . The spring latch kept itfrom clanging as it closed.
Her hand stung like hell.
Perhaps I do run from things. Tovah sighs. Is that really all we fought
over? How much of it is my own resentment of Isolde's fame, of her
choice to stop piloting? Why is she so angry about my falling in with thepirates? Serious smuggling isn't all that different from what we did
before. Maybe she's just worried.
Tovah tries to recall a poem Isolde wrote six years ago, when they
were first lovers. Only a fragment surfaces now.
you draw me like the moondraws the tides
unbiddeni comelapping
at your soft muted fullness
Tovah conjures an image of Isolde. Her dark skin glistening against
the white sheets. Her breasts rising and falling as she breathes. Tovah
caressing the tattoo on Isolde's belly; the mythical creature spitting
flames that mingle with the dark hair.
A light on the console interrupts Tovah's musing. Someone hasentered the cargo lock. There is just time enough to get the passenger
settled before departure.
Tovah spins her console chair to face the fugitive as the inner lockopens. A woman steps through the hatch. She is dressed in neon-blue73

with hair to match. Tovah suppresses a shudder. She looks like a Company spacer. Butit's obvious she's not a spacer at all. Tovah must put all
her psy-training to work, blocking the woman's emotionally charged
out-put. No spacer allows their aura to be so revealing. I'll have to workwith her on that.
The woman passes a blue envelope to Tovah. It contains a credit
voucher. I'll have to change this somewhere, Tovah thinks.
"I'm Captain I'shu. What should I call you?""Call me Mana." The woman bows.
Tovah rolls her eyes. '1fyou want to pass for crew, don't bow. Top
bunk's yours, stow your gear in the locker above it. For now I suggest
you strap into the co-pilot's chair as we'll jump to hyper-space as soon as
we clear the station."
Tovah spins her console to face the bridge. Mana watches raptly as
Tovah places the probes in the sockets at the base of her skull.
"Initialize Con-one and Con-two," Tovah says, glancing at the display to her left. The interface is operating perfectly. With a thought she
gives Moondancer's computer the command to undock.
They hear the thumps and clangs of the linkage disengaging, thehum of the maneuvering engines. Tovah ignores the customary stomach drop as they lose the station's gravity. She looks at her passenger.
Mana appears calm. Tovah gives the command to start primary engines.
Thrust pushes them gently back in their seats. Tovah gives theiritinerary to comp, so it can begin programming for the jump to hyperspace. First they must make a brief jump to Central Station. Then it will
be a rough jump to New Terra. A subjective seven days, hooked-in to
ship's compo
As the display indicates they're nea r jump-point, Tovah tells Mana
to relax, then takes a few deep breaths herself. Mana looks at her expectantly. Then they are both dizzy. The stars on the view screen appear to
move, blur together, slide off the screen and suddenly burst into rainbow jewels that pour past and through them as all other sight is obliterated. A soft crystalline chiming and the colors coalesce into an incandescent mist on the view screen.
"Goddess, you are beautiful," Tovah whispers.
"Tha t was the mos t incredible thing I've ever experienced. We were
drugged on the passenger ship. I can understand the allure of hyperspace now. Is that why so many pilots go mad?" Mana asks.
"50 many of us go mad because of people who talk too much,"Tovah snaps, her mind less on the feelings of her passenger than on the74

business of piloting. Ground-folk always get it wrong. Just because all
pilots are telepaths, and telepaths show a greater rate of mental difficulty. What seems like difficulty to them. Everyone has their own
universe-view, it's always such a shock when different universes
appear, burning holes in space where no one expected them. The
Company, for whom most pilots work, tries to find a way around it.
Rigid training, computers. But only telepaths can navigate in hyperspace. The best buyout their contracts and become independents. Like
Tovah.
''We'll be returning to space time normal shortly, you may want tobreakfast on the station, " Tovah informs Mana.
Aside from the physical effects, the problem with coming out ofhype is that you enter STN blind. The hype is communications-dead, so
you don't know what kind of situation you may be jumping into.
Moondancer's comp will not put them into a solid object, but that is the
only guarantee. At Central Station the only thing likely to be waiting forthem is Customs.
Tovah reminds Mana, ''Visor down, hang on." Then shuts her eyesand slips into her own protective visor. Force slams them back into theconsole chairs. Tovah feels the familiar pounding in her head, the supraaudial shriek that makes her feel as though her internal organs are vibrating, followed by a retina-destroying explosion of light perceived
even through the visor.
Calmly Tovah waits out the sensory jumble, and after a few moments is able to breathe again. Tovah looks over at Mana. She is pale andshaking but at least she hasn't puked all over herself. Mana smiles
weakly.
Tovah turns to the com console and licks her dry lips. She Ld.s her
ship and requests permission to dock.
''Moondancer this is CST, permission to orbit only granted at thistime. Please state crew, passengers, and cargo." Tovah gives them therequested information, and is told there will be a delay before docking.
"Fuck," Tovah says. ''They know I'm dead-heading it and they'rebound to be suspicious." She gives comp the command to orbit, thus
freeing herself from the interface.
'Tm going to get some sleep. Moondancer will wake me when
we get permission to dock. There's the head, and there's the galley.
Don't touch anything on the bridge, for any reason."
Tovah rises, stretching her arms above her body, first one and thenthe other. She bends forward and pushes her palms against the curve of75

the ship's wall. Slowly she slides her right leg above her head, pushingher crotch flat against the wall, then bends head to right knee and grasps
her ankle. She concentrates on using more tension and less force tocontrol her movements in the near-zero gravity. She reaches back for a
handhold and levers her body out along the 'ceiling.'
She drops, landing in a backwards roll, then comes up into a spinwith one foot above her head. As she brings that foot down she pushes
up and out into two forward walk-overs. Tovah barely pauses for breath
before flip-flopping halfway up the wall, coming away in a somersault.
She lands in a crouch.
As she slows her breathing, Tovah rises and begins an intricate pattern of arm movements. Subtle changes in hand gestures flow throughthe pattern and she moves her hips in decreasing circles, shifting her
weight and the angle of her body. Finally, feet together and arms at her
sides, she bows.
Tovah strips off her hypesuit, wipes her dripping face and falls into a. chair.
"You dance well."Tovah jumps, unaware Mana had been awake. "The movements
are as deadly as they are graceful," Tovah replies.
"A martial art?"
Tovahnods.
"Where did you learn it?"Tovah pushes aside her anger at all of Mana's questions. "Mymother taught me. That last pattern is called little birds and before that I
did falling water." Tovah looks up at Mana, watching herfrom the bunk,suddenly aware of the smallness of the ship's cabin. She gets up anddresses with her back to Mana.
After reporting their status to Customs, they are finally allowed to
dock. Tovah prepares to go in search of a legal cargo.
Good thing I planned itthis way. With hype so treacherous between
Central and New Terra a small common cargo should not be difficult tofind . And I know where to look for cover or anything on this station.
"Customs could spot you despite the blue hair," Tovah informs
Mana. "I can't risk it, you'll have to remain on the ship.""I've had cosmetisurgery, they don't have my retina prints, and I'msure these papers are good," Mana pleads.
"Let me see those pa pers." Tovah glances atthem. "All right. We'll
take you to your first spacer's bar. Try not to look too flashy, and don't
talk to anyone. And don't ask questions."76

Tovah hopes Mana will not do anything to embarrass her, or attract
attention to them. She remains in her black hypesuit and deck boots,
adding only i.d. bracelet and a dagger in her boot. In case of Customs
hassles. Mana follows her example and dresses in a gray hypesuit, sansjewelry or make-up. She might just learn yet, Tovah thinks.
"Call me Tovah.""But I thought you said crew should call you Captain.""On a small ship most of the crews don't have a very uh, formal
relationship," Tovah replies.
"Oh yeah?""Let's go."As they approach the Dragon Inn, Tovah slips her arm throughMana's and guides the other woman through the doorway. Tovahsmiles her greetings to the woman behind the bar, and raises her palm toa few of the gamblers as they thread their way to the booths in the rear.
Tovah orders drinks, and reminds Mana not to ask questions of anyone.
Then ducks through a concealed door.
She spots one of Drew's ex-lovers, but she can't remember the man's
name. She approaches him anyway. "1 need legal cargo, destination
New Terra.""What's your cargo cap," he asks.
"Twenty-eight tons.""Here's your contact number." He passes her a slip of paper as
Tovah hands him the standard fee.
Tovah returns to find Mana rebuffing some spacer, who is obviously
potted. She gestures for Mana to join her as she passes the table. They arealmost through the crowd of gamblers when a woman's voice calls"I'shu."Tovah turns wi th a smile alread y on her face. "Nica," she says, dropping her arm around the shoulders of a red-headed woman nearly as tallas she.
"1 take it such haste means prosperity.""1 trust you are doing well also," Tovah replies.
"Only at the tables. A game, I'shu?""One." Tovah rolls the twelve-sided dice in three turns, winningone, and losing two. She places her credits on the table. "Bones were
never my game, and the luck is always with you, Nica." Tovah bends tokiss the other woman's ear. "Till next time.""Good trip." Nica raises her glass as Tovah and Mana depart.
''Who was that?" Mana asks.
"Old friend ." Tovah recalls their days as dock hands, fifteen years
before.
77

When they arrive at the ship Tovah instructs Mana in how to supervise the loading. "The grips will knowwhatto do and will domostof thework, but try to look as through you know what you're about." She turns
and begins readying the bridge.
At last Mana comes in, sweaty but smiling. ''Done, Captain."
Tovah smiles back.
"This is gonna be rough sailing. You may be disoriented by the timecompression factor . Take the bottom bunk near the head and strap in.
Don'ttalk to me unless it's an emergency. Any questions?" Tovah turns
to begin hooking her nervous system into Moondancer's computer.
''Urn . . .'''What?""I think I started my period," Mana stammers.
"There are tampons in the locker above the head. Or, you can strap
into the co-pilot's chair. They're designed to take care of bodily functions in hype, when necessary.""But I thought. . ." Mana blushes.
"Lots of spacers are sterilized. But I've got all the parts I was born
with, honey."'Why do they do that?" Mana asks.
"Radiation hazard. Space is no place for children. You have a kid,
you're stuck on a station till they reach majority.""The Company colonists are encouraged to have a lot of kids."
Stupid idea. Overpopulation drove humanity into space in the firstplace, Tovah thinks. 'Well, if you strap into the chair, you have to staythere for the entire jump. And this one is subjectively much longer thanthe last one."
Mana decides to strap in for this jump too. This time Tovah must
explain all the functions of the console chair and demonstrate theiroperations. As she finally finishes initiating her interface with
Moondancer's comp, she is aware of the strangeness of someone besides
Isolde occupying the co-pilot's chair.
Then she sits back, awaiting the slow dive into jeweled space, andclears her mind in prepara tion. Seven da ys of concen tra tion, of flying theship with her mind. Her nervous system and Moondancer's sensors
melding in a complex process that makes her half machine, half human.
Tovah persists in thinking of Moondancer as a machine and not as abeing, though they know each other's thoughts, care for each other's
needs. It's one of the things that she hopes will save her from the madness that eventually takes most pilots.
78

The deceleration engines slam them into STN. When Tovah' s senses
stop reeling as much as they are going to, she commands the ship to orbit.
Then she unhooks and flings herself on her bunk. Mana has alreadydone so.
The alarm that signals docking clearance wakes them ten hours
later. Tovah rises and stretches the stiffness out of her muscles. She
speaks to the Control on the moon, links ship's comp with theirs, and lets
it guide Moondancer to dock.
Tovah supervises the off-loading, then'leaves a message in the net
for the owner of her legal cargo, along wi th the accoun t n umber to credi t.
As they are packing she says, "We can eat some place with a view in the
tourist section, then take a shuttle down to New Terra." She decides thisas much to protect herself as to please Mana. The food there will bebetter, too.
Tovah and Mana wander through the tourist district toward thetowering restaurant in the center of the moon's city. There is a dry coolbreeze, and the silver film of the dome obscures the view beyond. Lightfountains play along the simulated marble walkway, while quartz statues flash prism colors in pallid imitation of the jeweled passage to hype.
As they ascend in the glass elevator, the city falls away from them like apool of reflected stars.
The view from the restaurant distracts Tovah; it reminds her ofIsolde's early poetry, and why she wishes to avoid the spacer's strip.
She and Isolde knew each other briefly as cadets, in flight training.
The first time Tovah saw Isolde they were seated, along with 20 othernaked and shivering young women, on cold plastic chairs, awaiting
their induction physical. Isolde seemed more self-possessed than theothers. Her dark almond-shaped eyes, wide full mouth, and regal nose
set against her golden skin and long black hair reminded Tovah of an
Aztec Goddess. Despite her intimidating appearance, they became
friends. However, separated by assignments, they made no attempt tocontinue the friendship.
Six years later they met again, in a spacer bar on New Terra's moon.
It was a quiet, out of the way place that Isolde liked. Tovah went there to
get drunk, in hopes she would not see anyone she knew. She'd lost her
first cargo, been jacked on her first run in her own ship. When she met
Isolde she became belligerent. Isolde made fun of her self-pi ty till Tovah
finally laughed too. They made love that night for the first time.
"Excuse me, could you repeat that?""Isn't it about time we took a shuttle down?" Mana repeats.
79

"I'll see you off, but we'd best not leave together, nor meet once
there. SouthPort's where you wantto go, more traffic," Tovah replies.
Tovah stands on the view deck watching the shuttles land and liftoff. As the one Mana is on departs, she raises her palm. She tries not towonder what sent such a kid into space, illegally.
Tovah wanders aimlessly about the city, not thinking about what
she will do when she gets planetside. She hears the raucous laughter of
spacers in a bar and looks up. She has wandered near the bar where she
and Isolde met. Willing herself not to go in, she turns and heads for the
shuttle pad. Taking the long way around, she skirts the Russian Sector.
Once in the shuttle, Tovah leans back into her seat and closes her eyes.
The piped-in music was already starting to annoy her. After all the years
in hype, travel in STN is unutterably dull. She plans to sleep most of theeight hour shuttle ride.
Tovah is plagued by nightmares and wakes sweaty and gasping.
She gazes out the view port, watching the planet's horizon grow andappear to flatten. Features become distinct as they approach for landing.
She chews the inside of her lip till it bleeds, and old nervous habit. It is all
she can do to keep her mind on the lousy piloting and not on Isolde. But
thinking about the landing means resisting the temptation to telepathically co-pilot. She hates to intrude in a stranger's mind as much as theyfear intrusion. She forces her head back against the seat and begins
relaxation breathing.
After landing Tovah takes a flat in the newer section of SouthPort's
strip. It's about equidistant from The Dancer and two other bars she
frequents for work rather than pleasure. She bathes, works out andbathes again, enjoying the abundance of hot wa ter. Finally she begins todress for the night. She wears her customary deck boots and a black
hypesui t. She splashes iridescent purple make-up above her eyes and on
her neck. Then bedecks herself with opal earrings, a moonstone necklace, and many chiming bracelets. She wants there to be no doubt thishas been a good run for her. Lastly, Tovah slips two blades into concealed sheaths. Sauntering into the Mare's Nest, Tovah notes the sparseness of the early evening crowd. She drops into a bar stool. The woman
behind the bar sets a mug of coffee in front of her.
"Looks like the Luck's with you, ay, Captain I'shq?"
Tovah smiles, raises the mug. "And with you Magda?""As always, nothing new here, unless Chaka or Petra show up. Been
gone too long. No gossip, no fights, no one to talk to.""Gossip is like the wind, whispers but no substance." Tovah says.
They both laugh.

80

"Haven't seen Chaka in ... damn her ass," Magda says, jabbing afinger in the direction of the doorway. Tovah turns to see the small,lithe,woman waltz into the room. They embrace.
''We must spar, Tovah, I have not lost in months, I will forget how."''Wewill,soon. ButnowImustgo, leave a message in the net. Luck."Tovah says and heads for the door.
She takes a meandering route to Lil's, giving the bar time to fill up.
She peers at the lively crowd, sees few people she knows, though plenty
whom she recognizes. Tovah slips into a game of dice, gets out before
she loses more than she's won. She turns down an invitation to dance,then drifts toward the back room.
Scanning the smoky space she spots another of Drew's friends.
Tovah sits down and orders a drink. When the man turns and sees her
sitting there, he looks startled. He knows Isolde as well, so she must be
on New Terra. Drew must not be or his friend would not be out cruising,for work or pleasure.
Tovah decides to go back to the flat tonight, to allow news of her
arrival to reach Isolde before going to The Dancer. If Isolde goes there
after hearing the news, then she's ready to talk.
Next morning, Tovah checks her messages in the net. There's one
from Chaka, suggesting a time and space for sparing. After their workout, Tovah soothes her friend's injured pride by suggesting an Eduvian
feast. The scales are balanced between them when Chaka, an Eduve
native, wins the eating competition. They part as always, exchanging
goodnatured threats for the next meeting.
Returning to her flat, Tovah naps to ease the waiting for night. Whenshe rises it is still a few hours till actual nightfall, the bars won't be so
crowded at this hour. She dresses again in a black body-suit, the opals
her only adornment. The Dancer is no smugglers' dive. But she carries
the blades as always. Tovah packs her small bag and sets it on the end of
the bunk. She decides to skip dinner. Then stretches and slows her
breathing, trying to relax.
Tovah ducks, as much from habit as necessity, through the doorwayof The Dancer. She moves toward the bar without looking around,smiling if her name is called. She orders coffee. From the comer of her
eye she ca tches the flash of Isolde's black hair and golden skin, in a hazeof red cloth. Isolde is sitting alone in a booth near the aquarium wall.
Tovah picks up her coffee and wends her way toward the other woman.
"Hello, Isolde. May I?""Of course." They sit silently sipping their coffee for a long time.
Finally Isolde reaches for Tovah's hand. Tovah looks up.
81

"You cut your hair, it's nice." The dark spill of hair no longer runs
down Isolde's back, but ends softly at her shoulders.
Isolde raises both her brows, a gesture of Tovah's. "How's Luck
with you?""I needn't work for a while," Tovah answers. "Are you writing
anything new?"
Isolde shakes her head, looks away from Tovah. "I haven't been
writing in some time."
Tovah takes Isolde's other hand. ''Want to talk about it?"''What's to say? There was only pain for so long, and anger. The
poems were too personal to publish. I quit writing till I have somethingelse to say."
Tovah's mind reaches out to Isolde, private words in this public
place. If only you had seen more of us as private, not for public consumption. If

only I were more slow to anger.
They rise and head for the door, ignoring the eyes they know follow
them. As Isolde takes the second left, Tovah realizes where they aregoing.
The first time they had been together six years ago, they had stayed
in a Ii ttle bungalow on the very edge of the oldest part of the spacer
district. It was only two rooms, one nearly all windows, facing a garden,
the other dark and cool. They had called it their honeymoon cottage.
Isolde pours wine and they watch the night creep up on the garden.
They share fresh fruit and cheese. Finally Tovah breaks the silence.
"After my anger played itself out, I decided to come here and lookfor you. We need to talk our differences through."
Isolde's dark eyes flash . Later, she thinks, as her mouth makes soft
circles on Tovah's neck.
End Chapter One

Moon City Drashan Redack82

Martha Serpas

Xenophile

Her brows curl inas she bites her lip,our bodies don't quite fit.
I smile, breakthe five-hundred-piece
puzzle of her eyes, thenreconstruct them in my mind.
I won't share how thisis done. She rubs my shoulder,searches for the crease where
my pieces snap together.
Instead, she touches strange
combinations of characters,
hand-painted love letters written
in languages she cannot understand.

83

From Goddesses and Amazons©1983 Sudie Rakusin

84

Vivienne Louise

Ayemu's Children

L
was hard to remember how long she had been a spider. Certainly
through the past four winters. Now the fifth winter was fast approaching. The cool breezes whipped through her hair, causing chills to run up
and down her spindly body. She supposed that the movement of seasons was healthy but often longed for the warmth of the tropics. There
she would have been able to bask in the sun. Instead she was freezing in
the urban northeast, at the mercy of the chilling winds.
Angula was considered ordinary in her home colony of Con trona.
She was dark grey with slim legs supporting a round, plump body.
Varying shades of blond hair lightly covered her body giving it the appearance of darkness with a pale frosting. She stood 3' 10" tall with a leg
and body span of over fi ve feet. Her sharp, gaunt facial fea tures complemented the syrupy sweet body odor that was laced with insect musk.
As Angula paced back and forth, patrolling the stockade, she mentall y ran through the change-back ri tual. After all, she would be needing
it soon to make her trip into the city.
During her reverie she occasionally heard the quiet movements ofthe caged men. They were almost dead now and their bodies would
soon be useful. She shuddered whenever she looked at them. Theirsmall hairless bodies moving on two fat limbs while two other limbs did
what appeared to be nothing. Their sounds were horrible and she wasamused when she thought of the days when she had been charmed bytheir voices.
Angula had become a member of Con trona when her choices had
been limited. It was either work/beg for meager earnings, looking forward to nothing but starvation in her old age, or join the colony. She wasvery happy with her choice now, although apprehension had reined at
first.
The transition from human to spider had been difficult, but in theend she had been able to change to the spider body. Many wimmin her
junior in years had failed the tests. Instead they became workers, taking
care of necessary support tasks for the colony.
Con trona was a section of the city that had been claimed by thesewimmin many years ago. Their clean, modern buildings starkly contrasted the squalid run-down structures of the city outside Con trona
walls. Most of the outside dwellings were unoccupied, but a few still85

held hungry, desperate occupants, who were glad to be in out of thewind even if it meant sleeping near the spider colony. This squalor anddevastation extended around the colony for a twenty-five mile radius.
However, ou tside of this circular ruin, life in the city appeared to go on asin any other city. There were skyscrapers, air pollution, male executives
in colorless suits, young female secretaries, mothers with children, teenagers in twenty-year-old cars, older people eating in neighborhood
luncheonettes, etc. No one talked about the spiders, and in fact many
visitors came and went without ever suspecting that there was something as controversial as a spiders' colony near the city.
Most of the citizens rarely thought about the spiders. In fact, very
few of them had ever seen them, and therefore regarded the tales about
the colony as somewhat of a myth. However, very few city dwellers ventured near the colony, and of the few that did go near, even fewer returned to tell their tales.
The last adventurers were a group of young men from another partof the country. They had heard about the spiders and were determined
to see them. Their excitement and enthusiasm was contagious. Somuch
so, that a few of the locals decided to go along. They carried cloths ofmany different textures and colors, sweet foods, rare insects, radiantjewels and musical instruments. They had been gone now for about one
month. No one expected to see or hear from them again.
Angula was relieved to see the sun bringing in the dawn. She hadcaught herself napping a couple of times and was worried that she
would be discovered neglecting her post. In less than an hour someone
will be here to relieve me. Then I can get some sleep. I need to think about
my trip home. It begins tomorrow and I'm not sure that I'm ready,mused Angula. Oh well, I'll get some rest first, then I'll worry about thetrip. In about half an hour Angula was relieved by another spider
womon named Juney. They mumbled "good morning" to each otherand Angula hurried away to her home.
Upon awaking several hours later, Angula was still tired, but her
anxiety wouldn't allow her to continue sleeping. She laid in her web
soundlessly watching a small insect struggle to loose himself. She
thought about how small and insignificant the insect was but also what apity it had to die so unexpectedly. But then is death ever expected? she
wondered. I think not. It just moves in stealthily like the night, or
suddenly like a storm taking everyone unawares. Even deliberate
preparation 'doesn'tseem to help in the end.
The insect tasted salty and somewhat dry. Angula figured that it
was an aged being nearly on its last legs anyway. The taste of terror was
bitter as it nearly always was, but the initial satiation was sweet.
86After a few minutes more of silen t medi ta tion, Angula left her web insearch of a real breakfast of grasses and vegetation. The fly had only
whetted her appetite and she found that food was all she could concentrate on, right then.
Inside the cage, one of the men repeated in a sad slow monotone,"Help, please help us." The sentry didn't seem to hear this plea, notmoving a muscle of her body to indicate any sound had been made. The
man looked from huge staring eyes at the spider who seemed to belooking at nothing in particular. She had constructed a small web fromthe branches of the trees to the ground in front of the cage. Each spider
had her own different way of patrolling the cage. Some built mini-websfrom the branches of the surrounding trees and others simply crouchednear the cage changing their positions several times during their duty.
The sun was high in the sky. Its rays covered the colony with colors
and shapes that produced rounded images. Controna's sleek lines softened in the mid-afternoon light and the buildings shone pale and rigid
against the lush vegetation. The colony was made up of small one-story
dwellings suitable for building webs and attracting insects. The few
multi-story buildings were used to house wimmin workers and as dormitories for novices.
Con trona was well respected for its beautiful plants, shrubs andtrees, not to mention the profitable gardens and orchards. The spiders
had learned how to cultivate almost any and every kind of plant andvegetable. In fact, all of the food in the colony was provided by the many
gardens and the excess was sold at handsome prices.
By now, Angula was making preparations for the ritual. She hadcalled together four other spiders to assist her. All of the materials wereready and she was now meditating calmly so as to be able to complete thechange-back swiftly and painlessly.
In order to return to a humon form, Angula first became aware of allparts of her body. She fel t the life fluid flowing and sensed the pulse ofi ts
propulsion. Her mind became conscious of every function of her body.
There was no room for outside distractions. Every movement of every
cell was monitored and checked.
This did not mean that Angula concentrated on each cellular action
as one concentra tes on the words in a book or on listening to a friend . She
became aware of all of it without becoming aware of any of it separately.
If she had given any function or action more thought than another then
the whole balance would have been disrupted. Her monitoring was asthough she had thousands of eyes and each eye looked at one single
cellular activity. Therefore, all activities were obvious without anyone
being more obvious. This centering exercise was paramoun t to her being87able to change back in a complete form.
Next, after all movement was registered and monitored by her preconscious, she began to focus on single parts of her body. She began torearrange the cell ular structure moving from one function to the next in a
set rhythm. At this point her assistants started to mark the rhythm with
their own body movements. They danced and swayed creating energy
currents complementary to Angula's own rhythms. Their movements
were constant and unchanging although the steps were essentially complex. The air began to flow in a certain way around the five spiders.
The change-back was successful. Angula did not get caught inbetween, half spider, half womon. She was now a complete humon
womon with dark brown hair, even darker eyes, cocoa skin and full lips.
It was always a surprise to find that she didn't age as a womon, al though
her spider body did. Her mentor had explained that the humon form
was like a costume, worn to create an illusion but not at all real. She wasa real spider, so the womon form would always be as a costume is,unchanging except for wear and tear.
An hourlater Angula was speeding awa y from Con trona in a colony
jeep heading for the city limits. The setting sun created a horizon oforchid and orange beauty that spread out before her. Forty-five minutes
later she had entered the ou tskirts. A wave of nostalgia swept over her as
she passed the familiar structures and drove into the heart of the city.
She was headed for a far corner of the city where her mother lived in asmall stucco cottage.
Angula had been driving for over an hour when she reached thefront of her mother's dwelling. The sun had disappeared and the night
sounds were beginning to swell into a familiar chorus. The house wasnestled among a throng of trees and shrubs that all but camouflaged its
entrance. There was a small light burning on the porch and the bitter
smells of winter made her feel relieved to have arrived at last.
Mrs. Cooper opened the door to Angula's insistent knock. Her face
lit up when she saw her and she greeted Angula warmly with hugs andkisses. "You must have read my advertisement in the newspaper. I
didn't know where or how to contact you so Ijust took out that ad. I'm soglad you got the message and came to see your mother," exclaimed Mrs.
Cooper. "She's been very sick and the doctors don't seem to know what
to do for her. They say it's cancer and none of the treatments will help.
She's going to die very soon." At this last statement Mrs. Cooper wipedaway a lone tear. She bent her head in momentary reflection then nobly
straightened up. Her eyes met Angula' s and for an instant mutual compassion passed between them. "You can sleep in your old room. The
sheets are all clean and I just aired it out yesterday," said Mrs. Cooper.

88

"Georgia is asleep, but you can see her in the morning. She awakes early
and is really no trouble, although she must be in a great deal of pain."
The next morning Angula went in to see her mother. She was watching cartoons on the television set and the sound muffled her footsteps on
the bare floor. "Good morning," said Angula brightly. Georgia turned
from the set almost in slow motion and looked at her through misted
eyes. Her expression didn't change but she tried to boost herself up in
the bed.
"Hi honey. I'm real glad to see you," she replied. Making thesestatements took a lot of effort and it was almost a full minute before she
said anymore. ''Where have you been? I hoped you would get in touchand let us know where you were bu tyou never did." By this time she had
been able to boost herself up a little higher in the bed and was looking
slightly amused by this small achievement.
Angula sat down in a chair near the bed and began to tell her afabricated story about the past five years. She told her of traveling allover the earth, creating funny stories to accompany the names of every
port. She described the people she had met,weaving intricate personal
pictures of each character. And she hinted at knowledge that she had
gained in all of her tra vels. During her rendition, Angula was careful not
to mention anything that remotely hinted at spiders.
Her mother nodded in approval at the conclusion of her story. She
then drifted into a light sleep, leaving Angula alone with her thoughts.
While she was sleeping Angula decided to examine her mother to findout just what was the extent of the cancer. Her brief examination showedthat itwas extensive but not terminal. As a healer in Con trona, she could
weave a web coated with certain essences that would kill the cells,
drying the cancer up. The principle was the same as radiation therapy
without harmful effects to other parts of the body. But in order to weave
this web, Angula would have to return to the shape of a spider and thisclearly presented its problems.
Oh well, thought Angula, I have a few more days before I decide
what to do and how to do it. The most important thing for now is to
comfort her and ease the pain as much as possible.
The next few days were spent thinking and meditating. Angula
would read and talk to her mother at varying intervals during the day.
Because the pain drug was potent her mother slept a great deal leaving
Angula and Mrs. Cooper to entertain each other.
Angula had always liked Mrs. Cooper. When she and her motherfirst moved to the city, Mrs. Cooper helped them get settled in their newplace of residence. She took Angula's mother under her wing and showered many gifts on Angula. Mrs. Cooper was a big womon, 5'10" tall,89

weighing 220 pounds, with a majestic gait. Her complexion was thesmooth color of night, her face was as proportioned as a delicate statue.
Angula's mother took immediately to Mrs. Cooper, eventually calling her by her first name, Doris. The two of them became good friends,
each always knowing the other's schedule. They attended church together, went shopping together, took trips together and eventually
started living together.
Angula couldn't quite remember when she suspected that her
mother and Mrs. Cooper were lovers. It was a quiet reality that crept
upon her only to be recognized at its full completion. She, therefore,
wasn't sure when she started noticing the subtle signs and signals of
blossoming love. She supposed now that they were always there, it was
just a question of her maturing to the point of recognition.
When she finall y did admi tit to herself, she was fifteen years old andMrs. Cooper had been living with them for over five years. Her motherand Mrs. Cooper had now been together for over thirty-five years and in
all of that time it seemed that the love had just grown stronger.
Angula now perused Mrs. Cooper's figure preparing the evening
meal. She was still a very handsome womon, rounded in all of thedesirable places. Angula imagined her mother and Mrs. Cooper making
love on their double bed in the back bedroom. The thought of these twobeautiful brown wimmin moving to their own beat, feeling the pulsating
rhythms of passion and reaching their orgasmic highs, produced a warm
glow in Angula. She thought about how lucky they'd been to love eachother over such a long period of time. And how sad it would be for thatlove to end so soon and in such a wretched manner.
That night, after a careful and long meditation, Angula decided totreat her mother for the cancer. She knew that there were many risks.
The main concern was discovery, and perhaps an inability to return to acomplete humon form. If she was caught as a spider she would befeared, and from that fear, destroyed. If she was unable to complete her'change-to or change-back rituals then a half-complete bod ywould makeher just as vulnerable as a whole spider body. The danger was great andit might mean her life. But on the other hand, it could mean the continued life of her mother and the completion of a rich mutual love. She
resol ved to draw on every ounce of her courage and expertise to heal her
mother of the cancer, and do it the following night.
The next night Angula retired to her bedroom early. She and Mrs.
Cooper had gotten in the habit of playing cards and talking after dinner.
Angula excused herself from these activities, feigning an encroachingheadache. She had rested as much as possible during the day so there
would be enough strength to complete the change-to process. The sun
90was slowly setting and the magical hues were encouraging to Angula.
Her bedroom was now covered in a muted purple that aided the meditation segment of the process.
As she gradually became aware of all of her body processes, eachgiven equal attention, she heard background sounds from Mrs. Cooper.
A swift wave of panic filled her as she reminded herself about the risk
and her own possible death. But she felt as though there was no choice.
To turn back would be defeatist. She nestled back into the meditationthat led her to the necessary form.
The change-to was relatively easy. Her rested body yielded easily tothe necessary rh ythms and the reemergence of the cozy spider body was
comforting. She realized how much more she liked being a spider than awomon and that the body seemed to suit her consciousness much morethan the straight, hairless body of a womon. The bedroom, however,seemed too small and much too warm, causing her to sweat and long forthe night air. Fortunately, as a womon Angula had anticipated this andboth windows in the room were open. She went to the window andlooked out. There was no moon, and the stars seemed to have very dull
lusters in the dark sky.
Angula listened at her door to hear if Mrs. Cooper was still up. According to her dock, Mrs. Cooper should have turned in about half anhour ago. But Angula wanted to make double sure that the coast was
clear.
After she had assured herself of a reasonable amount of safety,
Angula ventured out into the hall. It took her a little time to open thedoor of her room because her spider legs had no configurations on thebase that could grab hold. She, therefore, ended up using her mouth. It
was a little tedious trying to grasp the knob, but she was finally able tosecure justthe right leverage, and open it. Oh dear, Morn's door is going
to be just as hard, maybe harder to open. This is one problem I hadn't
given any consideration, sighed Angula to herself.
Out in the hall, the street lights shone through the cracks in thedrawn curtains. It made dancing shadows in the room that unnerved
Angula in her presen t bod y. Wha t if Mrs. Cooper hasn't gone to bed but
has stayed up to look at the night, thought Angula in alarm. Mrs. Cooper
often did this, turning off all of the lights in the house and quietly staringout of the window. But the curtains were drawn, Mrs. Cooper couldn' t
be gazing at the night. Angula resol ved that she must calm down and go
about her task immediately before something really did happen.
The door to her mother's room was easier to manage than her own.
Her mother was lying on her back in a deep sleep. Her body wasn't
centered in the bed but was neatly placed on the right side of the bed as91

though she were waiting for someone to join her. Angula quietly closed
the door with one of her back legs and, moving into the room, foundherself standing on the left side of the bed. Her mother's face looked
peaceful, as though death had already taken her hold.
Angula climbed to the ceiling and'proceeded to spin a web that ran
from the ceiling to the floor covering three-quarters of the bed. The web
was hinged on the ceiling, the floor, and the right bedpost. She had justfinished weaving it, and was perched over her mother at just about theright angle, when she heard a noise. Angula froze in her position, notdaring to move a muscle. She heard the steady footsteps of Mrs. Cooper
coming down the hall. Her footfall was very quiet, being muffled by thesoft pads of her slippers. As she turned the doorknob, Angula reallybegan to panic. In split seconds her mind went through varying tactics
for escape. She could overpower Mrs. Cooper, run out of the house andtry to hide until the next night, when she would try to return to humonform. Or, she could simply frighten Mrs. Cooper, maybe making her
faint with fright, hurry to her room and try to change back to a humon
before Mrs. Cooper came around. Or she could knock Mrs. Cooper out,
finish the treatment she was giving to her mother and then worry aboutchange-back. Or, she could just si t very quietI y not daring to breathe andhope not to be discovered. Angula wasn't given the opportunity to
decide which action to take before Mrs. Cooper was in the room.
She was dressed in a blue nightgown with blue slippers thatmatched. The slippers were the type that look as though the feet havegrown an immense head of thick fur. Her hair was in curlers, a scarf
wrapped around it. Mrs. Cooper didn't appear to look up or around theroom at all. She simply went straightto the bed and gazed at the sleeping
form. She was standing on the left side of the bed and couldn't possibly
see clearly in the dim light, but she made no motions towards the right.
Angula continued to watch Mrs. Cooper for what seemed to be an
eternity. She began to muse to herself whether Mrs. Cooper was sleepwalking or something. It wasn't like her to come into a room and consume such a small, confined amount of space. She didn't make a movetowards her mother, but simply stood there gazing at the dim form. If
Mrs. Cooper moved six inches down the side of the bed towards its
bottom, she would bump into Angula's web.
Angula imagined her touching the sticky silk, wiping it from herarm, then searching for the light to illuminate the situation. Mrs. Cooper
had never been a timid womon, always bringing a grounded viewpoint
to what seemed to be baffling circumstances. Yes, if Mrs. Cooper
bumped into the web, Angula would be discovered for sure. The
thought made her shudder and hold her body tighter.

92

At last Mrs. Cooper left the room. Angula let out a sigh that almost
sent her gasping for air. She realized her fear had been enormous and it
would take a little while for her to calm down enough to do the healing.
That was really a close call. Now, all I need is for Mother to awaken,
needing a drink of water or to relieve her bladder, thought Angula.
In about half an hour, Angula was calm enough to begin the treatment. The quiet was so thick she could almosttaste it. It served as a salve
to her nerves, and she found herself concentrating at an intensity levelthat she rarely achieved.
The necessary healing essences were created by the combination ofminerals from within her own body, and the substances coated the web.
She would send the liquid from her mou th down the strands, causing thefriction needed to give the essences a strong potency. As the minerals
and web juices mixed together, a strong glow would emanate from theweb, giving it an iridescent look. This glow would increase, finallyreaching a point when it gave off an immense amount of heat and light.
The structure of the web directed the energy into the right place, sending
floods of healing light in a given direction.
As the web began to glow, Angula felt the heat rising. She became
empathetic with the web, making it possible for her to withstand thegreat heat without being burned or having to move. The glow increased,gradually becoming very bright and very hot. She could see that theenergy was being directed to the right place, the origin of the cancer. She
could also see the hideous cells drying up,one by one in rapid succession,as the light penetrated their substance, destroying the atomic makeup.
The room was very hot by now, and the light from the web filled theroom exposing every nook and cranny. Her mother began to moan andtoss in her bed, but this only lasted for a few min utes as she finall y driftedback into a sound sleep.
The healing took approximately fifteen minutes. Afterwards, Angula was exhausted and disoriented. Maintaining empathy with the
web took a lot of energy and the treatment had been one of the longest
she had ever given. The web was only a smoldering ash, self-destructing
when its usefulness was over. After resting for a few minutes, Angula
examined her mother to determine whether it had been complete andsuccessful. She found no trace of the cancer in any part of her mother'sbody. She had succeeded in curing her mother and saving her life.
Angula was calmly self-satisfied with the result. She scuttled back to herroom, amused at the thought of the confusion the doctors would go
through when they examined her mother.
Before she attempted the change-to ritual, Angula caught a few
hours sleep. She was too tired to build a web, and also feared discovery
93

of its remnants in the morning, so she laid down on the floor and drifted
off as best she could. Right before dawn she awoke, took herself throughthe change-back ritual and crawled back to sleep in her own little bed.
When Angula finally awoke the sun was high in the sky. She
bounded out of bed, hurriedly dressed and proceeded towards the
kitchen. She had planned to be up at her usual time, so as not to arouse
Mrs. Cooper's suspicion. In fact, she wondered why Mrs. Cooper hadn' t
called her to come to breakfast earlier. As she entered the kitchen, she
saw Mrs. Cooper bent over the table. She turned when she heard Angulacome into the room.
'Well good morning, or should I say good afternoon sleepy head,"Mrs. Cooper greeted with a laugh. "I thought you might have needed
the rest so I just let you sleep. Georgia hasn't woken yet either and she isusually such an early riser. Oh well, sometimes the body needs a lot ofsleep and sometimes it needs very little." With this small piece of wisdom Mrs. Cooper served Angula a cup of tea. "1'11 have lunch ready inabout half an hour. Do you wantto wait for it or do you want something
to eat right now?" asked Mrs. Cooper.
"Oh, I guess I can wait," answered Angula. "In fact, I think I willtake a little walk around the block to build up my appetite."As she was walking, Angula tried to get in touch wi th a hazy feelingof uneasiness. Although the actions of the previous night were strange
in this particular setting, they were really very familiar to her. She was ahealer in Con trona and performed these or similar movements regularly. Maybe Mrs. Cooper is acting strange, thought Angula. After ali,most mornings she wakes me up to have breakfast, insisting that I need amorning meal to fortify me for the day. When I was a little girl she was so
insistent on this that I never·got to sleep in on weekends, recalled Angula. Hey, hey, maybe the old girl is getting soft in her old age or mymother's illness has caused her to relax more. Oh well, I'm probably justworrying about nothing. I'll clear my mind of these uncomfortable feelings and get back to lunch.
Lunch consisted of roast chicken, fresh garden peas, scalloped potatoes, stewed tomatoes and cherry pie. A far cry from the usual soup andsandwich. 'What's the occasion?" asked Angula.
"Oh, no occasion. I just felt like having a nice meal in the middle ofthe day instead of the usual soup and sandwich. We can have a lightsnack for dinner," Mrs. Cooper flatl y answered. "Your mother still isn' t
awake. I called the doctor. She should be here in a little while. I hope thisdoesn't mean that something has gone wrong," Mrs. Cooper added
thoughtfully.
Angula' s mother was just waking up when the doctor arrived. She

94

had uttered a few moans and was raising her arms above her head tostretch when the three of them filed into her room. The doctor started her
examination with routine calmness, pushing, poking and prying in astate of basic boredom. After a few minutes of checking the doctor
seemed to feel something of interest in the abdominal region of her
mother's body. She kept poking around in that region. Finally she raised
her head and pondered for a minute. Then she said, ''We better take her
into the hospital for tests and X-rays. It looks as though something haschanged in her condition."
An ambulance was called and Mrs. Cooper and Angula followed it
to the city hospital. Neither of them spoke during the ride and the empty
silence was somewhat haunting.
After about two hours, the doctor came to the wai ting room to speak
to Angula and Mrs. Cooper. Her face was grave and she looked puzzled.
''We have done extensive tests and have made several X-rays and theresults are somewhat baffling," stated the doctor. Then she turned awayfrom them and took a few steps. "It seems that there is not a trace of thecancer in her body. Of course, we are checking, re-checking and conducting more tests but we can't seem to locate it anywhere. It's thedamndest thing I ever saw. We just don't know what has happened."
A small triumphant smile slowly crept over Angula's face. She wasso absorbed in her own joy that she didn't notice a quiet look of pleasurethat also crept over Mrs. Cooper.
''Well, anyway, we may want to operate and we will need her approval. She doesn't seem to want to cooperate so I wondered if one of
you could persuade her to be reasonable," asked the doctor.
''Why do you need to operate?" asked Mrs. Cooper. "You just said
tha t you can't seem to find any cancer in her bod y. Why can't you jus t let
well enough alone?"''Well, this just seems so extraordinary that we wanted to go inside
to check that everything is really alright. Just exploratory surgery. It's
really quite routine," replied the doctor confidently.
''Well, that isn't a good enough reason to cut into someone's body,just looking to see what you can see. Georgia's right to refuse to consent
to such nonsense," said Mrs. Cooper in her most matter-of-fact tone.
The doctor looked slightly surprised and annoyed. She started toapproach Angula but changed her mind mid-motion. Then she walked
towards the door to the waiting room, turning around briefly to say,"You might as well take her home then. There is nothing else we can dohere." She hurried down the hall, never even turning to say good-bye.
When Angula and Mrs. Cooper got Georgia home, the three of themhad a small celebration. They told Georgia of the diagnosis and toasted

95

the good fortune with tall glasses of sparkling lemonade. Angula'smother then slept for the rest of the day.
The next few days passed quickly. Georgia slept less and started
talking more. Her appetite increased and her general spirits were high.
The doctor called a couple of times to try to persuade them to have theoperation, but the answer remained a firm no. By the time Angula was
ready to return to Controna, her mother had made a marked improvement over her original condition. Angula had examined her and foundthe healing process progressing nicely. Everything seemed to be going
just fine.
On the day that Angula was due to return to Controna, Mrs. Cooper
pulled her aside with a clandestine air. 'Where are you going after you
leave us?" she asked.
"Oh, I don't know. I guess I'll just drift some more. That seems to suitme," answered Angula.
Mrs. Cooper then looked down for a moment as though trying tofind the proper words to say. She searched Angula's eyes in a pleading
way. 'Well, honey, you take care of yourself, you hear? And remember
your mother and I love you for yourself no matter what or who you are or
have become." She completed this speech by giving Angula a big warm
hug. They walked out onto the porch to catch the setting sun. Angula
only had a few minutes, but she valued this intimate time with Mrs.
Cooper.
As they watched the sunset, Mrs. Cooper noticed a small spider
weaving a tiny web in a nearby bush. She wandered over to it, watching
the busy creature weaving and spinning in rapid frantic movements.
Some spiders can't see very well at night and need to complete theirwork before natural light is gone. Angula followed Mrs. Cooper, naturally fascinated by her tiny sister. Mrs. Cooper watched thoughtfully
before she said, 'Whenever the spider visits she always brings goodluck."
They then walked back into the house. Angula kissed her mothergood -bye, promising to write and come to see her often. These were two
promises that she knew would be difficul t, if not impossible, to keep, butthey made this loved one happy. Mrs. Cooper helped her load up her car
and watched affectionately as she started the motor to warm up the jeep.
Then she kissed Angula again through the car window, gave her a big
healthy hug and told her to take care of herself. Angula could still see
Mrs. Cooper's form waving good-bye in her rearview mirror as she
moved down the road, heading for Con trona.

96Cheryl Elaine Davis

Stone Hands

for Dessie

1
was happening more often. Too often. It must be the music. Or the
food. Too many amino acids.
Arlo closed the door to her head as she dragged and battered theswollen wooden door back into its place so she could lock it. Before thefinal snap of the old fashioned bolt, Arlo hesitated. Maybe she would
leave the door unlocked tonight. That gave her the courage to look at her
hands.
If she could just get enough light. She always wished for more light;
dreamed about it. The only brightness she'd ever really known was inschool, in the films.
She knew a suns tick would work the best, make enough light,
though she'd never actual!y'seen one. Cost too much.
She tumbled the combination on a Firefly. It pointed its plastic antennae and spread its luminescent skirt like whitened wings in thewrong place. In the wrong place if this was a real firefly, Arlo thought.
She'd never seen a real firefly. But she knew someone who'd heard oldstories about fireflies . Fireflies as thick as helicopters that would light up
the park at night, blinking like police eyes up and down the streets. Little
insects that flew around and made lights in the dark.
Freedom From Insects was an inalienable right of Citizenship, Arlo
repeated in rhythm to the voice in her head.
The film in her Citizenship Preparation class continued to play. The
announcer' s voice rang in her head: "Before The Rapture, the evil world
was punished for its sins with plagues. The plague of insects, frogs andsnakes was one of the worst. Diseases, and sickness. The noise of thewoods and forests was a constant irritation."
Arlo shut the mental sound off. She watched the film in her mind
while she thought about little bugs that blinked and glowed and strung
lights all over the gloomy dusk. This far North it was always as dark as
dusk. If there were still little fireflies maybe they would be able to glow
and blink all day long.
She shook her head. The world is supposed to be better without
bugs. That's what the film taught. But she wondered. She wonderedeven as the Video replayed the Truth of Citizenship in her mind. The
97

internal volume came back up. She found that it took her constant attention to keep it off: ''The world is cleansed now. Free of the punishment of
unrigh teousness."
Serum Videos always stayed with her. She never needed the reschooling, the booster-injections. Everyone else she knew did.
Whenever she went for a Citizenship bloodtest, the Congregation
Psychiatrist smiled and laughed his toothless congratulations to Arlo on
her serological ability to retain Citizenship. But she never told him or
anyone else in her family that whatever the test said about her blood, it
never helped. Sure she could remember each film, each injection, eachlesson. She was graduate, a Citizen. But that didn't make her a Good
Citizen. Unlike the people she worked with, her family, Arlo never felt
better remembering the films.
Arlo never felt better about anything. She wondered what Better
would feel like. Her worker-group-family knew. They felt better working. In factthey loved their work, her work. She hated it. Hate. Hate wasdone away. Being a Citizen of the United World Covenant meant being
free of any evil feeling-like hate. And climax.
This was a cleansed world, now. She was a cleansed soul, free-freeof the stain of Eve's sin. Free of climax after childhood.
Arlo remembered that film, too.
The World was One. The creation of life and the joy of creation
belonged, like it had always belonged, to the Spirit. No one could createchildren. That was done by The Spirit, now. And the Spirit was housed in
the World on an island surrounded by a beautiful blue ocean faraway
from the pa th of mortals, un til mortals were caught up in theirrigh teousness and carried to the Island of the Spirit.
Arlo knew there must be a lot of righteousness. Many of her family
were gone. When someone didn't show up any more, everyone nodded
and prayed, and said, Praise the Spirit. And Amen. Not Arlo. The workers that disappear don't seem especially spiritual or righteous. To Arlothey just seem gone. It is too deep a mystery for Arlo to figure out what it
takes to be caught up and transported in righteousness to The Island.
She didn't share with anyone that she didn't understand righteousness. Not even her family. But Arlo didn't understand families, either.
Everyone belonged to a family, but the children for each family weresent'by The Spirit through the Congregation Psychiatrist. Parents were
Father and Mother Workers called by The Spirit to take care of His children. Children were matched in personality and temperament andphysical characteristics as much as possible, to the Parent Workers.
Arlo's Mother Worker said The Spirit got mixed up on the paperwork for
Arlo, since Arlo didn't match anyone.

98Childhood was a preparation for Citizenship. Citizenship was
preparation for being caught up in the Rapture of righteousness andtaken to the Island. And The Spirit visited among the children, to preparethem for Citizenship and Righteousness.
A Visiting Spirit would corne to a child and teach them aboutthe evilof their bodies by touching them to climax. Visiting Spirits were always
men. Arlo knew that. She remembered that. She seemed to be the only
one who did know or remember. She mentioned once about Father Benson being a Visiting Spirit, and two of her worker-sisters brought her tohim-he was also the Congregation Psychi<l,trist- for a bloodtest. She
passed the test and pretended ever after that not to remember. She tried
not to remember about climax or about how rough Visiting Spirits were.
They all had too many fingers, poking and telling her all the while about
how evil she was.
Thinking about Visi ting Spirits made Arlo remember the first Serum
Video, entitled "Relief From the Evil Body," and Arlo decided that Citizenship was about forgetting. At least about forgetting childhood. The
injection, the video that first time, had made her sick. She was the only
one got sick, too. Arlo thought about the beautiful golden serum that theneedle sucked in and then poured into her blood and mind. the chemicalmust do something else, though. Arlo was almost sure of that.
Arlo didn't get to be a Mother Worker. The Spirit needed her as a
Worker Example. But they hardly needed Mother Workers anymore.
There were fewer families, fewer children so the Plague of Famine could
cease.
Since there was no desire for sex after Citizenship, being a Mother
Worker or a Worker Example didn't matter to Arlo. It just meant a namechange- adaptation. Her pre-ci tizenshi p name, Charlotte, was reservedfor Mother Workers. Worker Examples took the proper grammaticalmasculine form . Her reward for high bloodtest scores after school wasthat she could adapt her own name. She hated Charles. She knew that she
would end up as Chuck. She had narrowed her letters down to 'Lot' or'Arlo'.
During Pre-citizenship therapy she had Ie tit be known she liked Lot
so they gave her Arlo. And even with the memory of the film, the Lessonon Honesty to The Spirit coursing through her veins, Arlo had used thePsychiatrist's trick back on him, by lying. And she had almost known
what Better felt like when the call carne that her name was Arlo.
She didn't like Iying. She didn't like doing anything she wasn't supposed to do, even though nothing in her bloodstream assisted her. She
never got nauseous for lying. She never got a headache for pretending to
be like the others. She never got a nosebleed from thinking about climax.
99

She never developed the bright red rash women Worker Examples got
from being raped by men Worker Examples.
This had happened only once to Arlo. It was hard to understand how
this could still happen in a cleansed world. She heard the Psychiatrist tellsomeone that 'rape' was a reaction some men had when the Serum Videos didn't work. But that's all Arlo had heard.
So the only thing Arlo understood for sure, was that she was different. Different from her family.
That's why she gotto live alone for the whole month of Rapturebirth
Holidays. She said she was studying ancient evil history and since noone was supposed to be able to lie, they believed her. So she got to live inthe Leftover Building. No one else lived there. Arlo made an apartmentin the back on the second floor. There were three floors and an oldelevator and stairs that were too dangerous to use. Arlo used the fireescape on the outside.
The building came from the time of Lust, before the Rapture when
the World of Sin was replaced by a World of Righteousness. The Leftover
Building was the tallest building for miles. In the New World, everything was built on the ground. So with the height and without a suns tick,living there was a little scary, but it got Arlo away from her workerfamily and their witless ritualized celebrating. She shuddered thinking
about the endless days and nights of prayer meetings and confessing
and caroling and fasting. She had had to buy them all a present and it
would take her a millennium to get back out of debt.
She put a piece of broken glass in front of the Firefly, to make the lightstronger, and looked at her hands. Transparent, just for a moment, thenopaque. If she just had a suns tick. If it would ever quit raining so the sun
would come out. If she had a bright enough light, then, then she could
tell.
Then the reason, the truth about the shortage of sunsticks tapped on
Arlo's consciousness. A piece of truth but not in words. Maybe, maybe
even somebody with a serum memory would notice, if they saw it. If
there was enough light, so there is never enough light.
Something was happening to her. And she wanted to stop it. If it was
happening to anyone else that was their problem.
She pushed the Firefly to the edge of the rickety table and looked ather hands, again. She broke the Seventy-third commandment and slid
her shirt sleeves up and looked at her bare arms tracked with the injection marks of school. Her arms seemed to hold the light. Not reflect thevague glow, but hold it. Her arms felt distant from her. Solid and cool to
the touch. Like pillars. Her arms felt like the marble pillars in the prayer
room next to her work space.

100Something was wrong. And it wasn't in her head like the Congregation Psychiatrist was sure to say.
And Arlo got angry. Then she almost got sick. Her stomach knottedand her head tilted inside itself as sweat dripped across her face . The
lesson on not getting angry rushed up through her veins. It made herangrier. Something was wrong, something with Arlo was wrong and it
was wrong on purpose. Someone knew something was wrong and they
were lying and hiding the truth of it from her, from everyone.
And the angrier Arlo got, the better she felt. Arlo felt Better. Relieved
and sure of herself, purposeful and calm. Joy spilled onto the anger andArlo felt Better and Better. She felt better for the first time in her life. For
the first time in the ten thousand nine hundred fifty seven and-she
looked at the time pulsar strapped on her survival belt along with therecordings of the Commandments-and five-tenths days of her life, shethought. And in her joy, she knew what to do.
They had made a big deal ou t of locking the door. Leftover building
had ghosts, evil spirits, they had said. So Arlo would do as she had
wanted to do for days, she would leave the door unlocked. Whatever she
could think of that she had been told not to do, she was going to do.
She undid the combination on the Firefly and ran for her bed before
the vague lit shadow it gave off was gone. She closed her eyes and started
for sleep as the sound of Midnight Carols from services being held allover the city crept through the old walls of the Leftover Building.
The total darkness of night hadn't settled for longer than minutes
when Arlo heard the door pushed open. The ancient wood screamed
out, holding onto the floor. Since Arlo hated the night, the total darkness
it brought, she practised getting around her apartment with her eyes
closed in the gloomy daytime. She closed her eyes now, as she always did
at night pretending it was really day, making the darkness her choice.
She moved towards the front room and its tiny couch. She moved
cautiously and with the clear sense something, someone had corne in
and was waiting there. .
Even with her eyes closed, Arlo could see the light, feel it. She covered her eyes wi th her hands because she would not, could not, willingly
close her eyes to the wonderful brightness in front of her.
One finger at a time, she lifted the shades her hands had improvised.
It seemed to take forever. And seeing didn't reall y hel pAr 10 unders tand.
She only understood she was breaking the Seventeenth commandment
because she was looking at a naked woman. Face to face, body to body,
Arlo looked at a completely <l;nd absolutely totally naked woman. The
woman stood shining in the light of a suns tick that was planted in a potof
cactus Arlo couldn't get to grow.
101

Neither spoke. Both seemed as ready to run as they were ready tofight to stay exactly where they were.
Arlo couldn't help blushing. She had never dared to look at her own
body even during shower time, though she had wanted to. A Visiting
Spirit had described naked women to Arlo. Now, a woman, tall, without
covering even her breasts as Arlo surely would have, filled Arlo's entire
field of vision. Arlo stared. The woman let her.
Arlo dropped her eyes to the woman's feet. Perfect, curved justslightly on the inside. The toes were long and slender, dancers' feet,like
Arlo' s-that' s what Arlo's Mother Worker had called them. But dancing
was forbidden as was most music except hymns, unless a Visiting Spirit
asked for either or both.
The woman's legs were straight and sallow from ankle to knee tothigh; smooth and lean. Each thigh came together making a 'v' outlined
by dark hair. The thick and curling mound of hair circled around, hypnotizing Arlo. And what Arlo saw, she wanted to touch. She wanted toreach between the woman's legs and stroke the woman there. Arloblushed deeper.
The woman did not blush. She did not move.
Her stomach was rounded like a Mother Worker's, shadowing andmystifying the mound of hair tucked under it. The light yellowed as it
fell across the strong muscular hips that only roughly marked the waist.
Looking from the navel upward, Arlo started to breathe deeper, slower,
to counter the strange racing of her heart. The woman's skin took thelight full on, driving attention to her two firm breasts, rounded like thegolden dark sand that Arlo had cupped once with her hands when she
had gone to the shore of the Eastern Ocean. The woman shifted herweight. Each breast lifted with each brown nipple, bobbing and holding
still, making the light and shadow between the breasts rearrange andseparate.
In what felt like an hour and could have only been a few seconds,
Arlo looked at the woman's face. The strong chin, the almond eyes under
severe black eyebrows, so dark blue they were nearly black, the highcheekbones and short forehead crowned by a hood of dark hair made aplace far inside Arlo melt. No wonder they made the rule about naked
women, Arlo thought. Without it everyone would have to be reschooledagainst wanting climax.
Arlo couldn't decide which to focus on, the woman or the suns tick.
Each was a wish come alive.
The woman reached a finger out in an unexpectedly awkward motion, and pointed towards Arlo. Arlo looked down and in one terrible
moment realized what the woman had pointed to and what she herself
102had been dreading for the last three months.
Arlo fell to her squeaky couch, her hands outstretched in front of her,on fire in the light of the sunstick. Arlo cried as she tried touching one
hand with the other. She had no sensation in either and noticed the lackof feeling went up past her wrists. And they weren't exactly hands anymore. They were crystalline sculptures of hands.
Arlo looked at the woman who had moved to the couch and was
sitting by her. Then Arlo looked where the woman was looking. And
Arlo gasped. The woman reached one of her topaz-carved hands to
Arlo's lips, in a hushing gesture. Arlo ca ugh t herfear and the noise it was
aboutto make. Tears rushed down both faces as each held with their eyes
the other's stone hands.
The woman was named Zoe.
Zoe reached over and in a clunking procedure- Dresden hands toglass- got Arlo to lift her hands up. Then Zoe shifted her weight, slid
closer and pushed her breasts to Arlo's hands. The warmth was immediate. So was the effect. Arlo's hands trembled and shook for a moment asblood surged, muscles moved and the skin on Arlo's hands became
opaque. Her hands warm and alive, cupped and squeezed each firmbreast.
Arlo was unwilling to notice the welcome change in her hands forfe ar the impending passion would never happen. Able to move her
fingers, Arlo circled each of Zoe's brown hard nipples, drumming onthem in a beat catching both women up in a motion that brought themeye to eye.
Zoe told Arlo as much as she knew. But Arlo was storing the information, saving it. She didn't want to waste even a millisecond of theelectricity circling between them on something she could remember
later.
Zoe tried to pull Arlo's oversized shirt up, tearing it atthe collar withthe cl umsy movements the hand-statues at her wrists seemed capable of.
So Arlo helped and for the first time in her life sat totally naked in front ofanother naked woman.
There wasn't time to think, or decide. Each woman wrapped theother with the warmth of her body until Arlo cried out in a faraway
voice, her thighs gripping and letting go of Zoe's legs, faster and faster.
Zoe spread her legs open after Arlo came and Arlo, stroking Zoe's cold
rigid hands and placing them around her neck, bent down, slipping
deep with her tongue until Zoe called out in a voice like Arlo's, shiveringand pulling Arlo up so they could lie face to face in Zoe's sleep.
And Zoe was gone. Somewhere in their sleep, Zoe had slipped loose
from Arlo's grip and was gone.
103Nothing mattered, not now. Nothing Zoe had told Arlo, had taught
her, mattered now.
Arlo, naked, gripping the potted sunstick, climbed through the entire building looking for Zoe before she let her anger rage out of control.
The Serum Video, for all its intended control only served to enrage Arloeven more. She jammed the suns tick back onto the table and threw herself on the bed, kicking and flaying her body and pounding the pillow
with her doubled-up fists until she had to stop from exhaustion.
The caroling seeped back through the walls. The city must havestayed up all night, Arlo thought, drugged from her outburst. She hated
the Holidays and their chemical celebration. The joy of making love with
Zoe made the ritual and circumscribed acti vi ties seem even more hollow
to Arlo. All she wanted was Zoe. And she knew now what she had
wanted and yearned for her entire life. All she could do was empty hersadness and anger into a deep and dreamless sleep.
She jerked awake thinking it was morning. Too bright. She noticed
that it was too bright for morning before she remembered anything andthen the flood of what had happened only hours earlier washed throughher.
Arlo was sad. She felt betrayed, abandoned. But, she thought toherself over the video replaying of "The Evils of the Body," she felt agood many other things, wonderful things. Joyful things. A deep peace
surged up through her stomach and chest and Arlo felt glad to be alive
and in the feeling, knew she had never feltthatway before. Hosanna! She
shouted and did an impromptu dance of joy in front of the suns tick still
growing in her cactus pot.
There were still five or six more hours until the grey shadow ofmorning lifted above its thicker cousin, night. Arlo welcomed the sleep.
She set the pot wi th its wonderful hoI y ligh t on the floor by her bed. She' dalready drawn the curtains and hung a blanket over the boarded window, just in case The Spirit was patrolling on the Eve of Rapturebirth.
She had no intention of getting caught breaking the Eleventh Commandment.
Arlo knew something for herself. She knew something she'd createdthat hadn't been created for her, put in her blood as though she had doneit herself. She had done something herself. She had known love andfound out tha~ her body was not disgusting. And she had a suns tick.
Everything Zoe had told her carne back. Arlo would use the Holidays to
run away. To run south. It wasn't too late. And it wasn't the food. Or
protein. Or the music.
Arlo looked at her soft, supple hands, warm and strong, andtouched them under the soft pillow. She slept on top of the covers. She
104

slept naked, snuggling against the coarse blanket. She slept naked tomake sure she would hear the rebellion finally alive in her soul- to makesure when she awoke she could hear it call her south.

(From Chapter One)···_- t;.... .

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O'j'fi~'cr" C.I. :~d.d~cAll p.1j~1"~ flU ltiQ . ,Theater Dome Drashan Redack105

Jasrnine MarahCatching a Spirit

Ichasing
remember well the day I spent in the Prague woods with Natasha,a spirit. Why did we want to catch this spirit?
"Better you should leave it alone,"-this was my grandmother'sadvice. "Ha! You can't catch any of those mischievous ones. Only bethankful that all it's done so far is spoil the milk a few times and let the
cow in to the garden. Be glad that it wasn't the chickens she let in, then the
cucumbers, the potatoes, the beets, they'd all be scratched up. The cow
walked daintily through, only so, she sampled, a little here, a little there.
And yes, I know this spirit. So the fire got, nu, a little tea spilled on it. So
we're not freezing."
Bubby was right, it was late spring and we weren't freezing. It
wasn't the cow in the garden, nor the spilt milk that was troubling N atasha and me. We had a deeper problem, and we were sure the spirit was
the cause of it.
Natasha and Brundy-people always said our names together. We
were first cousins-both orphans, and raised together for the past three
years, since I was 13 and N atasha was 14. We studied wi th grandmother,
she was educated, her father and husband had been rabbis. So Bubby
taught us to read and write Polish, French, Hebrew and Yiddish. She
taught us to figure accounts and to bake a good thick black bread-you
could live on that bread and tea! And also, not so much, but some, to sew
and mend-and well, other skills of a kosher home.
So far so good. So what was the problem? Natasha and I foundourselves having a strange,even unnatural attraction to one another. We
were sure, sure positive, that this spirit was causing this!
I mean, we'd go to bed in our chamber-and this devilish schemer
would pull the quilts off one or the other of us and then, such a fightsuch nattering-well, so the fights were leading to ...to quick intakes ofbreath, and funny hot feelings"Do you feel it, Brundy?/I"What?/I"You don't feel it?/I"What?/I/lThat-/I"Oh. That. .. that...heat here?/I
106

"Yes, that!"'1t's a spirit, I know!"
So we were worried- I mean-what man is going to want to marry agirl who, takke, not only is so strange as to read but who has also been
known to be familiar with spirits?!!
So Natasha and I decided to lure this spirit. That's why we took the
cow and ourselves to the Prague woods.
!twas positively hot, that day in the woods. Mushroomy smells. The
earth itself was in the air. Natasha said she could practically taste it. I
asked her, 'Natasha-do you think that maybe that's what happened tothe spirit that's chasing us?"
"Brundy, what? What are you talking about?""I'm talking about being buried-""Buried?""Yes, yes, what if someone were buried-and they weren't completely dead and the dirt got into their mouths and they tasted-"''What indeed, Brundy-talk plain Yiddish, please. So you mean it's
because the poor spirit tasted dirt she wants to bother us?"
'N atasha-I am talking plain- anyhow, what I mean is: if a woman
was sick, let's say, or if she was sick of her husband and she took somesleeping herbs and they made her her sleep a long time only she wasn't
dead-""Yes, yes Brundy-I too read Romeo and Juliet. So what? Why us?"''What I mean is: what if they buried her somewhere in Bubby
Sarah's fields or barnyard?""Brundy, vay iz mir, such a mishegoss you're talking-buried a
Jewish woman in an unmarked grave?""But, Natasha," I answered, "Maybe she was, God forbid, murdered! Remember, her husband didn't like her-"''Well, that could be true, but of course it could be that the sleeping
potion was pOison,·and then, and then, she' d be considered a suicide-""And then she'd be buried in an unmarked grave!" I finished
Natasha's thought for her.
So we had that settled to our satisfaction.
''Why don' t we give her a name, Natasha?""Brundy, what for? And what name?""For, because-if we have a name for her we could call to her better-and what name-" I was, for once, shushed. What did I know fromnames?
.
We were quiet for awhile. The cow, Bella, was content to walk withus sampling every sort of ground growth that crossed her path andoccasionally eating low hanging twigs and leaves. Bella-that's short for107Balabosta because she was always so dainty and clean in her ways-was
not on any lead. She followed on her own. We wanted the spirit to betricked. We wanted the spirit to think that Bella would follow her, justlike she did into the garden. Only we'd be close by, and we'd be watching. Then we could follow Bella, who would be following the spirit, rightto wherever it was the spirit stayed. So, why the woods-you may ask?
Well, I couldn' t have told you then, but looking back on it now I
think N atasha and I thought the woods spooky and well .. .full of atmosphere. A likely place to find a spirit.
That day might have been spent just wandering around, pleasantbut not really accomplishing anything, if it hadn't been for Bella lying
down"N atasha ... N atasha ... wait-Bella' s not going-""Brundy, what do you mean, she's not going? You're watching herexact place? So maybe she went already."
N atasha was picking ripe, burs ting berries and eating mos t of them,and, I hoped,saving some for me. I was always slower than N atasha-so
I had to stay with Bella.
''No, Natasha, she's lying down-" So at that Natasha came quick
enough.
We waited together in a small sunlit clearing. Bella had some sense.
Why should she walk, takke, when here was what she dreamed her
cowey dreams of: fresh deep grass, with flowers, even, shade or sun anda small seeping spring. So Natasha and I settled down to wait.
"00 you think the spiri t is here, Brund y?"
I cuddled closer to Natasha, because I knew that even though she
was the older of us two, and more practical, she was scared of the spiri ts
much more than 1. I guess that's because when you're a dreamy girl like
I was, spirits of one kind or another are what you get to know a lot of.
We must have fallen asleep for awhile, because I remember waking
andseeingNatashadozing. Nu?Whynot? The day was warm-I pulled
off my apron, dress, shoes and stockings, and two of my three petticoats.
I still had on a fitted bodice, long bloomers in addition to the third petticoat. Hashem forbid I should get cold! I felt new and charged-I could
not remember ever having the sun on my bare arms before. We orthodox
girls were never allowed to expose our toes, even.
So, there, in that clearing, I danced around a little bit. After all what
was the harm? So who was even going to know? Only Bella-and she' dnever tell. Suddenly, while I was dancing, I really felt someone was therewith me. I knew that it was the spirit and when I knew that I also knew
her name: Tamar, who in Bible times slept only with Judah for the sake of108

having a child, and was wise, and kept to herself. A widow as a young
girl and all the rest of her life.
1 had wondered why she had chosen to keep to herself. She could
have forced Judah to keep his promise and marry her to his son Shelah,but she seemed to prefer to stay alone all the rest of her days.
"Tamar, Tamar," 1 whispered, "are you here?" So 1 was not exactly
shocked when, well, to tell the truth, 1 was shocked-when a wraithlike
figure appeared near the spring-"Natasha, Natasha-wake up already-wake up-"Natasha just muttered, "Shah, shah, gay shlofen." So 1 turned myattentions to Tamar.
"1 am Tamar," she said. You could hardly tell that she was talkingsuch a flutey sound, like wind in the reeds. "I've come to help you andNatasha-and to tell you that nice Jewish girls and good Jewish mothers
have lived in the company of one another for ages.""What? What do you mean 'company'?""1 mean, without marriage to a man-without the bed of a man in
our houses.""Who supports them? How do they live?""Oh, Brundeleh, look around you-the wimin always make the living." And at this voice 1 was shocked-such a nothing 1 felt. Because,
answering so bold was Natasha, who had waked and crept close to me.
"That's true, Natasha," replied Tamar. "Even in my times, Biblicaltimes, wimin owned flocks, gathered honey and made mead, spun,
wove, created many beautiful jewelry pieces and raised grains, dates
and fruits . Women kept spaces for travelers-tents for guests-just as
wimin are innkeepers now, here, in Prague. Wimin invented cheese, andtraded. Wimin discovered salting meat, drying and grinding all sorts offlours, brewing wine and beer-oh, the list is endless!"
1 was, for once in my life, speechless. True, 1 was thinking of Bubby
Sarah. Her husband, my grandpoppa Reuven, had been a rabbi, but
rabbis didn't earn much in Prague unless they were very important.
Rabbi Reuven was just one of ten or twelve rabbis at a large shu I whotaught Hebrew and Bible study. Bubby had always kept milch cows andsold milk, butter, cream and cheeses. And now N atasha and 1hel ped her
and we had started to sell eggs too. All kosher.
So-where was this leading? 1 looked to Natasha. She was talking
with Tamar about what I'd been thinking. 1 waited until they were quiet
for a moment and asked Tamar, "Nu-so why did you come to us? Why
try to change us to your way of thinking? Even if it is right?" 1 knew thatsounded a bit foolish-but 1 meant the idea could be right, but the feelings had to be our own.

109

"But, Brundy-Natasha-I only came to you after you had the feelings all on your own-"''What? Didn't you let the cow into the garden?"''What cow? Oh, Bella. No, it wasn't I, it was the delivery boy of thebutcher. He opened the gate so he could pass there late in the evening
without the gate squeaking, on his way to visit Shelia.""But what about the milk? Its spoiling?"''Natasha-Iook to yourself for that! When you sit thinking ofBrundy's brown curls and red mouth and rush through the washing of
the milk pails carelessly-the milk will sour."N a tasha blushed at this and I laughed. Little did I know that my turnwas still to come. Foolishly I asked, ''What about the tea putting out the
fire?""Brundy- I'm surprised that you ask such a nebbish question.
Wasn't it you that put the tea in a glass on the low shelf so that it should
warm up a little? And then you forgot about the tea while you thought
about Natasha' s ankle and knee? And the glass got, takke, hot and burst,
and the tea went, where else, on the fire."
And with that Tamar disappeared.
Natasha and I were very shy with each other for several days after
that. We did our chores, just as always. Natasha was extra careful of themilk pails. I was careful of where I left my things. But we did not stop
thinking of each other's mouths and curls and ankles and knees.
Then one Shabbes, we were in our chamber and Bubby Sarah was
visiting an old friend, also a widow, when it happened.
Natasha reached over to me and said, "Brundeleh-did you reallythink of my ankle and knee?""Yes-""Do you want to touch them?"''When?''''Now?''"Yes.""Did you really think of my brown curls and my red mouth?""Yes.""Do you want to touch them?"''When?''''Now?''"Yes."
And so that's what happened. N atasha' s lips on mine and in my hair,
my hands on her knees and thighs and-well, you know where else.
And Tamar? We didn't hear from her too often. But when we adopted an orphaned baby girl, years later, Tamar is the name we gave her.
110

__________________________________ Correction
I was glad to see my poem, "Fathers / Da ughters ," in the fall '87 issueof Sinister Wisdom (p.60). The fourth stanza, however, contains a serious
typographical error. The seventh line should read "But the word thatwould heaL" rather than "But the word that would hear ... " Unfortunately, ''hear'' makes a certain awful sense, one that badly distorts themeaning of the poem.
"Fathers/Daughters" is about a painful dilemma that at some point
faces many incest survivors: is it possible to forgive the perpetratorwhen forgiveness may be necessary to self-healing - without jeopardizing one's own integrity and sense of self worth? The poem asks
whether forgiveness, "the word that would heal," is affordable, will cost
too much, whether we can speak that word - and whether we can afford
not to. The poem, deliberately, does not answer the question.
The "word that would hear" suggests that the incest survivor has
some obligation to speak a word of comfort to the perpetrator, perhaps
because he is now old and lonely. In such a case one might, in fact, feelcompassion, and even act, consciously, out of that feeling. But the line
implies that healing depends upon making the victimizer feel better. The
tern pta tion to fall back in to a pos ture of responsibili ty for the perpetra tor
does often exist, but if given into could be deeply self-destructiv:e.
Forgiveness, in the sense of freely giving up one's own embittering
anger, for one's own sake, may need to be felt and experienced - but is
notto be confused with easy sentimentality, often an avoidance of anger.
For the sake of your readers, many of whom may be incest survivors, andfor the sake of the poem, I hope you'll not only make a correction (ideallyreprint the poem), but will print this letter as well. I don't think Sinister
Wisdom would want to be saying what the poem, uncorrected, seems tosay. #33 is otherwise a wonderful issue!
Sincerely,
Margaret Tongue

Editor's note: We absolutely agree, and apologize for the error. We don't haveroom to reprint the entire poem, but urge readers to reread it in #33 with thiscorrection. The last four lines of the fourth stanza should read:
Tenderness in us is more than a word.
But the word that would heal? Is it
In us? Can we speak it? The word they
Cannot hear, is it a word we can spare?

111

Revievvs_____________________________________
Magic Mommas, Trembling Sisters, Puritans and Perverts by
Joanna Russ (The Crossing Press, 1985, $6.95)
No one is better qualified to write about X-rated writing than Joanna
Russ. Her half-page Lesbian sex scene in The Female Man remains anunequalled miracle of construction. Her one-sentence sex scene in"When It Changed" in trod uced at least one writer to a whole new way ofand reason for writing erotica. There is no way her speculations on
erotica/pornography could be other than fascinating. However, sheaims to do more than speculate. This is a book of "feminist essays,"attempts at feminist theory. As Russ herself says in the introduction,
they are not very successful attempts. Each essay, while full of exciting
ideas, is also irritatingly and frustratingly inconclusive.
The six essays, written over several years, diverge from and return to
the theme of pornography / erotical sexual fantasy, its personal meaning, its cultural function. Russ is at her best dissecting the meaning
behind various fantasies that turn her (or other womyn) on: this one
serves to make a grim situation tolerable by eroticizing it, that one to
explore the possibilities of an equal relationship, another to conceptualize Lesbianism for a young girl who has never heard of it. Not only are
the conclusions exciting, the process of reaching them is even more so.
Russ takes seriously the cliche about the personal being political. She
reaches her conclusions by analyzing her own experience, minu tely andwith a skeptical turn of mind that seeks the contradiction, the hidden
clue. This book crystallizes a little of the excitement of consciousness
raising. But unlike consciousness raising, none of the analysis leads toany useful conclusion.
Russ states in the introduction that these essays would all benefit
from being rewritten in terms of a theoretical framework. Atthe time she
wrote the introduction, she had one, stemming from a definition of exploitation that Marx never bettered: " ... that women's resources be available, non-reciprocally and without pay, to men." (It's a quote from
Woman, Church and State by Matilda Jocelyn Gage, first published 1873.)
Developing political theory is always a worthwhile goal. But the area inwhich Russ concentrates her attention doesn't lend itself easily to political analysis.
The introduction scores a few successes. Using a materialist analysis, it puts the pornography industry squarely in its place in the patriarchal structure: "Men who can't or don't want to buy women's resources112

· . . via marriage or ... prostitution, can nonetheless buy fantasies of having access to women's resources." Russ defines pornography (as "commercial sexual fantasy sold largely to heterosexual men") in a refreshingly verifiable way. She entertainingly and incisively criticizes aspoin tless any anal ysis of it tha t ignores its economic con text. Then, when
she should give some hint how her economic analyses make her reassess
the issues considered in the body of the book, she instead passes off mostof the essays as bad theory and drops the subject.
Her only word on how she would rewrite this book is the cryptic
formula, ''There is no such thing in male-dominated culture as 'acceptable pornography'." What is this supposed to mean? That since pornography (like everything else around and in us) is a product of pa triarchal
culture, there's no use discussing it? Enjoying it? Creating it? Having
put the pornography industry into its rightful, minor slot in a system of
economic exploitation, has sh~ lost interest in the various meanings andpossibilities that sexual fantasy has to womyn? Does she want to doaway with the pornography ip qustry, or is that too small and symbolic atarget? Does she include commercial sex-writing by Lesbians for Lesbians in her definition of the pornography industry? Is it now against her
politics (feminist for "religion") to write-or read-anything meant tobe sexuall y stirn ula ting? What program does her anal ysis indica te? Or is
her theory only a parlor game after all?
Pursuing these questions, I tried to recast some of the essays in economic terms and found it impossible. The essays are about fantasy, noteconomics. The (unstated) theory offantasy that emerges clearly in thisbook is that it serves different functions in different situations, being
either propagandistic in reinforcing the status quo, or creative in undermining it, and possible both at once. The introduction states that theimportant question about pornography written by and for womyn iswhether it reinforces patriar~hal ideas. It would have been interesting toread her essay "Pornography by Women for Women" rewritten in termsof this question and the implications of her answer. The essay deals witha (heterosexual female) subculture of Star Trek fandom dedicated toimagining an equal sexual relationship between mutually respecting,powerful people, both male. Does she now think of this as a potentiallyrevol u tionary li tera ture? Or does she dismiss it as gi ving energy to men
or a distraction from serious political work?
Applying an economic analysis to the other essays turned out evenless fruitful. This leads to several possible conclusions: (#1) That pornography/erotica isn't the central issue that the anti-porn movement
makes it out to be; (#2) That a good definition of exploitation, including
sexual exploitation, doesn't lead to a good theory of female or Lesbian113

sexuality. (That is, you can know a lot about exploitation and nothing
about what it is that's being exploited); (#3) That in the lack of a goodtheory explaining the what, the why, and the how of female sexuality,
arguments about what is or isn't "good," "natural," "normal,""healthy," and the like are ungrounded and meaningless; (#4) That forthese essays to work as theory, they would have to be rewritten in termsof a framework that relates fantasy to economics-and someone would
have to create that framework; (#5) That a book .of essays about whatsorts of X-rated entertainment different womyn like could attempt todevelop a theory not of exploitation but of female sexuality. Consciousness raising really was the right approach to the subject. Conclusions
would have to be highly tentative, but that would improve on this book's
lack of conclusions.
Whatever their faults, the essays are worth reading. Each contains
some gems of thoughts on the Women's Liberation Movement devol vinginto the womyn's community. Anyone who lived through it felt theloss of hope, the turning inward, as a movement to change the world
became a minority dedicated to its own survival. Russ describes the way
criticism serves a different function in a closed club than in a politicalmovement. The theory of a movement is a guide to action and criticism isa way to improve both. In a refuge criticism changes from a tool to a sin.
How dare we (however defined) make each other uncomfortable in the
only place we have? "The personal is political" ceases to be a basis foranalysis and turns into an excuse for arbitrary standards disguised aspolitical acts. "Can a feminist like the Rolling Stones?" "Can a feminist
wear high heels?" "Can a feminist be a prostitute?" "Can a feminist be
intoS/M?"
No one would ask such ridiculous questions if there were an effective feminist movement. "The personal is political" would mean, as it
originally did, that individual lives can be examined for clues to social
power dynamics. A womyn would be judged as a feminist according to
how much she is involved in group action for group power.
An interesting question Russ doesn't address, since she doesn't
write as a Lesbian in this book, is how much Lesbian feminism confusedat least one generation of Lesbians as to what defines a Lesbian, or whatdefines Lesbian solidarity. Another is to what extent straight feminists,
devolving from a movement into a lifestyle, adopted or failed to adopt
Lesbian ways of recognizing and dealing with each other. Another is towhat extent various womyn assumed Lesbianism and feminism to be
the same thing, and the consequences of that for both. A Lesbian perspective would greatly enrich any book about the collapse of thewomen's movement, which this book, perhaps unintentionally, is.

114

The essay "Power and Helplessness in the Women's Movement"
deals most explicitly with this depressing reality, but the reality permeates the book, and may in fact explain the curious lack of conclusion.
How can anyone write theory for a nonexistent movement? Whose
actions would one write to guide? No theoretical framework could havesaved Joanna Russ from living through the collapse of a dream. The
essays could be read as attempts to write something that would hold it all
together and give it direction. The introduction's calling them bad theory could mean that they didn't analyze far enough, deep enough, wide
enough, to keep the movement from becoming a lifestyle. But no essayon any subject could have done that. These are still entertaining andthought-provoking, and may inspire others to continue the many tasks
Joanna Russ started in them.
-Rebecca RipleyDreams of the Woman Who Loved Sex by Tee Corinne (Banned
Books, P.O. Box 33280, Austin, Texas, 78764, 1987, $7.95)
Yes. Yes, that's the way it is. The first tickle of want, the inexorable
rise of desire, the rise of new awareness in every cell-fingers, tongue,
labia, clitoris, fingers and toes, the roots of the hair. That's the way itis,
really good sex with women; and now Tee has re-made it for us withwords, as over the last years she has made it with graphics and film andphotographs.
This is love she writes about, no relation to the slick male-madeconcepts of Penthouse and Cosmo, or the smug self-justifying of the pious .
There is no limit on the number of women a woman can love, and every
one different, a universe in herself. Love invents love, like the widening
circles of orgasm. A woman fulfilled in good sex finds herself becoming
all-encompassing. Her own juices and smells are wonderful- and so is
the taste of food, springing grass, sunrise and the way words look on
paper.
This is a book for sharing. The young coming into their inheritanceas woman-loving women can learn from it; the old find their memories
springing alive as they read. Goddess knows we need it.
The daughters of the Goddess live through three stages, as she does.
We metTee as Maiden, waking to joy. Now she is coming into full bloom
as Mother, teaching us what we need to know. 1'd like to be around in
forty years' time when her work reaches its full splendor- what a Crone
she will make!
-Valerie Taylor
115

Wingwomen of Hera (Book One of the Cosmic Botanists Trilogy)
by Sandi Hall (Spinsters/aunt lute, 1987, $8.95)
I'm not a science fiction reader by nature. In fact, before I read Wingwomen of Hera my past experience of off-planet fiction was a couple of
Ray Bradbury short stories. I expected sci-fi to be hard to read, full oftechnological terminology and emotionless characters. Wingwomen of
Hera proved all my assumptions wrong.
Hall' s first book of the Cosmic Botanists Trilogy is a compellingstory of life on two planets, Hera and Maladar. The planets were split
apart by the tail of a mighty comet, and developed very different civilizations.
On Hera, lush and beautiful,live the Wingwomen and the Finners(a water species). This community of space explorers and botanists live
together in peaceful, creati ve harmony. Decisions are made by the elders
while each inhabitant is left to decide her own path of creativity andlifestyle. Both the Wing women and Finners reproduce parthenogenetically, no males being needed on Hera. As the book begins, Hera's elders
are besieged by a deadly disease of unknown origin and the women areintent on finding its cure (this echo of AIDS is an interesting dash ofreality).
In counterpoint, nearby Maladar is covered with deadly ice and its
inhabitants must live in carefully guarded underground shelters. The
lives of the Maladarans are strictly monitored by chosen "Thinkers." Thecaste system, reproduction and day to day life are directed by the
Machine. On this planet the story revolves around the charming, sympathetic character of Naj, who has been chosen to bear the Newchild of
Maladar, a future Guider of the planet. She has a daughter and the
problems this creates (the Newchild had always been male) carry theplot through the social structure of the ice-bound planet and eventuallycause a meeting between the peoples of the two planets.
The novel crisscrosses chapters about Hera and Maladar, and boththreads weave together to create a marvelously fast paced work. Hall's
language, precise and clear, creates specific pictures of life on the twoplanets without the need of a cumbersome glossary.
Hall has written for a variety of media, for the stage, television andmagazine industries, and has published The Godmothers, a future fiction
novel put out by the Women's Press in England. But science fiction is her
medium, she says. "I started writing in science fiction because I found it
gave me freedom to move. I felt great deal of fiction about life as weknow it is really depressing and I didn't want to add to that. I wanted tocreate fiction that is exciting, and woman-focused, and to look at life witha116

vision. For women, science fiction is a perfect medium because you canbreak all the rules and show why the structure of our society as itis today
is silly. You can dare to be visionary, show new ways of being, and create
hopeful societies."
Hall's novel is rooted in scientific fact. This sets her writing apartfrom future fantasy and makes it widely accessible. Speckled throughout her book are various guideposts for living. The strict laws that rule
Maladar seem oppressive to us today, but parallel the law we live under
now. And the harmonious rules for living to which the Herans subscribe
give insight to our own lives. Far from being a book which only talked
about peoples and places I could never imagine, I found myself examining my own social structure, society and way of life. I await The
Newchild of Maladar, the next book of the trilogy, with anticipation.
-Louise Rafkin_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ Books Received
Sinister Wisdom makes a special effort to support the work of the independentlesbian and women's presses. While we can't review all the new releases, wewould like to draw your attention especially to the following:
A Restricted Country, prose and essa ys on lesbian life from the 50' s to the presen t,
a wonderful, radical collection by Joan Nestle which every dyke owes herself thefavor of reading, $8.95, Firebrand Books.
The Monarchs Are Flying, a lesbian murder mystery by Canadian Marion Foster,$8.95, Firebrand Books, 141 The Commons, Ithaca, NY 14850.
Politics of the Heart, A Lesbian Parenting Anthology, ed. by Sandra Pollack andJeanne Vaughn, $11.95, Firebrand Books.
Words to the Wise, a writers guide to feminist and lesbian periodicals & publishing, by Andrea Fleck Clardy, $3.95, Firebrand Books.
Making It,A Woman's Guide toSexin theAgeof Aids, by Cindy Patton and Janis
Kelly, Spanish translation by Papusa Molina, $3.95, Firebrand.
Companeras: Latina Lesbians, a bi-lingual anthology, ed. by Juanita Ramos, $8,
Latina Women's Ed. Resources, PO Box 627 Stuyvesant Sta., NYC NY 10009.
Two Willaw Chairs, well-wrought lesbian short stories by Jess Wells, $8.95,
Library B Books, 584 Castro #224, SF, CA 94114.
The Dress/The Sharda Stories, Jess Wells' earlier short stories in a new, combined
edition, $7.95, Library B Books.
Past, Present & Future Passions: Poems by Barbara Ruth, from a multi-cultural
lesbian perspective, $8, W.A.T.R., 5825 Telegraph #90, Oakland, CA, 94609, to be
sold and shared with women only.
117

AbenakiGhosts,Native-AmericanpoetrybyCathyCzapla,$1.50,chapbookfrom
The Blue Cloud Quarterly, Vol. 33, No.4, PO Box 98, Marvin, SO 57251.
Ultimate Conspiracy, lesbian-feminist poetry by Jacqueline Lapidus, Lynx Publications, $7.95, PO Box 902, Provincetown, MA 02657.
Lesbian Passion: Loving Ourselves and Each Other, essays by JoAnn Loulan,$10.95, Spinters/aunt lute Book Company, P.O. Box 410687, SF, CA 94141.
Child of Her People, a Western with the Indians as heroes by Anne Cameron(author of Daughters of Copper Woman), $8.95, Spinsters/aunt lute.
Tight Spaces, a weave of short prose pieces by Black writers Kesho Scott, Cherry
Muhanji and Egyirba High, $8.95, Spinsters/ aunt lute.
Rivers Running Free: Stories of Adventurous Women, from 1900 to present, ed.
Judith Niemi & Barbara Wieser, $12.50, dist. by Spinsters/aunt lute.
Making A Way: Lesbians Out Front, over 100 beautiful photographs of lesbians
by JEB (Joan E. Biren), $11.95, dist. by Spinsters/aunt lute.
A Lesbian Photo Album: The Lives of Seven Lesbian Feminists, by Cathy Cade,$14.95, Waterwomen Books 3022 Ashbrook Ct., Oakland, Ca 94601.
Love Me Like You Mean It, lesbian-feminst poetry by Lesh~a Newman, $6,
HerBooks, PO Box 7467 Santa Cruz, CA 95061 .
Love, Politics and "Rescue" In Lesbian Relationships, an essay by Radical Therapist
Diana Rabenold, $3.50, HerBooks.
Between the Lines: An Anthology by Pacific/ Asian Lesbians of Santa Cruz, CA,
ed. by C. Chung, A Kim, AK. Lemeshewksy, dis. by HerBooks .
All Good Women, a feminist novel set on the home front during WWlI by Valerie
Miner, $20.95 (hardcover), Crossing Press, Freedom, CA 95019.
Gray Magic, the 3rd Stoner McTavish lesbian mystery, set in the Navajo & Hopi
lands, by Sarah Dreher, $8.95, New Victoria, Box 27, Norwich VT 05055.
Morgan Calabrese: The Movie, lesbian and gay cartoon collection by N. Leigh
Dunlap, $5.95, New Victoria Publishers.
Parents Matter, relationships with Lesbian Daughters and Gay Sons, by Ann
Muller, $9.95, The Naiad Press, PO Box 10543, Tallahassee, FL 32302.
The Women's Book of Healing, essays and charts on specific practise, by Diane
Stein, $12.95, Lewellyn Pub., PO Box 64383, St. Paul, MN 55164.
The House With the Blind Glass Windows, a feminist novel by award-winning
Herbj0rg Wassmo, $9.99, Seal Press, PO Box 13, Seattle, WA 98111.
Alyson Press (40 Plympton St., Boston, MA 02118) has reprinted: The Law ofReturn, a novel of an Israeli journey and coming out by Alice Bloch, $8.95; Coming
to Power: Writings and GraphicS on Lesbian S/M (updated), ed. by Samois,$8.95; Rocking the Cradle, Lesbian Mothers: A Challenge in Family Living, by
Gillian E. Hanscombe and Jackie Forster, $6.95.
Lesbian Philosophy: Explorations, radical essays towards the development of
lesbian consciousness by Jeffner Allen, $9.95, Institute of Lesbian Studies, P.O.
Box 60242, Palo Alto, CA 94306.

118

____________ Contributors' Notes
Donna Allegra: Writing is my basic path in life with dance running aclose second, but I need it all, even my job as an electrician with thosefucked-up stupid asshole males. All that I do makes for my life's lessons
and human nurture. I've been in the Jemima, Naps and Gap Tooth
Girlfri~nds writing groups. I live in New York City.
Tara Danaan, Hypnotherapist From Hell, lives in Seattle. Her stories,
poems and reviews appear now and then, here and there. She's curren tly
working on a novel, Coffee, Death and the Immortal Cinnamon Roll, and is
co-author of a guide to meditative self-transformation called Personal

Revolutions.
Max Dashu teaches women's history freelance via her Suppressed
Histories Slide Series. She writes, draws and paints in Oakland, Calif.
Cheryl Elaine Davis is a teacher who most loves teach students how
read literature, and a poet who's "I Can Still Hear My Grandmother'sVisions" won the Eliza R. Snow Poetry contest. She recently
resettled in Chicago claiming her life desire as a worn yn and a writer. She
just finished a novel, Dreamtakers, that chronicles the healing path of an
adult incest survivor and the difficulties of getting well in the patriarchal
context of the Mormon church and the male psychiatric system.
Laura Hershey'S poems and articles have appeared in Plainswoman,
Arvada Center magazine, the Rocky Mountain News, Accent on Living, andVoice of Independence. She has traveled in England and Kenya, writing on
the impact of disability in different cultures. She lives in Denver, where
she is an active advocate around the issues of home health care, accessto transportation, and violence against women.
Sarah Lucia Hoagland is a chicago separatist and radical lesbian. In
addition to co-editing For Lesbians Only, she has completed a manuscript
entitled Lesbian Ethics: Towards New Value which is not a rule-book ofright behavior, but a challenge to our use of patriarchal ethics together
with suggestions for new value. Lesbian Ethics will be published by theInstitute of Lesbian Studies and is due to be released on Halloween.
Jano is an union organizer, writer and graphic artist. She lives in
Oakland with her son Jonah.
Judith Katz was born in Worcester, Mass. in 1951. Her plays have been
produced by the Washington Area Feminist Theatre, the Omaha Magic
Theatre, Chrysalis Theatre Eclectic, and At the Foot of the Mountain. She
was also part of the team that wrote Toklas, MN., a lesbian soap opera.
Her fiction appears in The Coming Out Stories, Sinister Wisdom 19, Fight
119

Back! Feminist Resistance to Male Violence, and The Evergreen Chronicles.
"The Amazing Disappearing Girl" is an excerpt from her novel-inprogress.
Amy Klitsner is a Jewish lesbian who lives in SF, CA. She says thatfriends who are brave enough call her "Amy Kli til or "Klit" for short. She
enjoys black light photography and does theatre production for a living.
Anna Livia is 31, a lesbian radical feminist,lives in London, is a memberof the Onlywomen Press Collective and co-editor ofGOSSIP, a journalof lesbian feminist ethics. She is the author of RELA nVEL Y NORMA,ACCOMMODA nON OFFERED and INCIDENTS INVOLVINGWARMTH. She is finding it harder and harder to write the end of BULLDOZER RISING as happy endings get scarcer and scarcer.
Vivienne Louise is an African-American lesbian separatist who has
resided in Oakland since 1978. She is originally from Washington, D.C.,
and is forever grateful for her move to sunny California.
Jasmine Marah, enigmatic, eclectic eccentric.
Christian McEwen: Born London, 1956. Live in the Lower East Side of
New York and commute daily to Coney Island where I work in Adult
Literacy. Read and write letters on the subway, type poems in the lunchhOUl, and spend most evenings and weekends juggling Virago business(I've been editing two lesbian anthologies, including Naming the Waves,
an anthology of contemporary lesbian poetry, which appears in March
1988) with my ongoing projects: essays, poems, the occasional review,
and one day, I hope, a novel.
Bernice Mennis: I live in the Southern Adirondacks building a homeand sharing land with close women friends. I teach in the prisons and for
Vermont College's Advanced Degree Program.
Nicky Morris teaches Feminist Studies, Writing and Literature at Goddard College. She lives in the country and dreams of traveling.
Sawnie Morris lives in an old (as in centuries), slightly renovated, adobebarn outside of Taos, New Mexico, where she chops wood, hauls water,
and writes poetry and fiction. She job-shares the directorship of Taos
Arts Celebrations, and serves on the Board of Directors for the Taos
Battered Women's Project. She also participates in a thirteen member,lesbian, eclectic ritual and meditation group in its third year of weekly
gatherings.
Marjory Nelson is a fat 59-year old lesbian writer and hypnotherapist
who lives in S.P. This piece is from a book in process, Dora's Aura.

120

Beth Povinelli is a graduate student in anthropology at Yale. She is oneof the founders of The Lesbian and Gay Studies Center at Yale and has
written several articles on some cross-cultural comparisons between
Australian aboriginal and Lesbian separatism.
Louise Rafkin is an Oakland writer currently editing Unholy Alliances,a collection of short fiction by women to be published by Cleis Press in
1988, and edited Different Daughters: A Book by Mothers of Lesbians, also
from Cleis.
Sudie Rakusin: I am a lesbian, a Jew, a painter, 39, an Aries with fiveother planets in Fire ... live in the woods with my three dog companions... paint and draw whenever I can, giving back to the goddess what Ihave
been given.
Drashan Redack is a writer, composer, graphic artist and videot; politically left with metaphysical interests. She sees the need for a major
facility which can promote and support the work of unknown community artists. She lives and works in S.F., professionally in the field ofelectronics.
Catalina Rios lives and writes in Philadelphia.
Rebecca Ripley is one of her own minor characters.
Martha R. Serpas is a recent transplant from southeastern Louisiana to
Manhattan, where she is beginning graduate study as a fellow at NYU.
Sheila Ortiz Taylor has written two novels, Fault/ine (1982) and Spring
Foreward/Fall Back (1985), both published by Naiad Press. A native
Californian, she now Ii ves in the part of Florida that is most like Georgia
and is writing poetry and a sequel to Fault/ine .
Valerie Taylor: I am 74, still reading and writing with the aid of plastic
eyes (implanted lenses), a peacenik, gay activist for many years, 11
novels published, half a book of verse (the other half is Jeannette
Foster's), many poems in magazines, help wi th Sanctuary in small ways.
Naiad has just taken a book of mine called Rice and Beans, which is aboutliving and loving within the welfare system in Tucson.
Michelle D. Williams: I'm a feminist/ socialist, dealing with the contradictions of being the mother of a son; a life-long story teller, recently"come-out" as a science fiction fan; and I collect tattoos (on my body).
zana: 40, disabled jewish separatist, in my seventh year on lesbian land.
my dreams are strong and i look to realize them through replacing mypatriarchal conditioning with womon-values, bit by bit. herb womon, acollection of my poetry and art, is available for $7 from me at 12150 w.
calle seneca, tucson, az 85743.
121

Announcements and Classified Ads
CALLS FOR SUBMISSION
la bella figura. Finally, a literary journal devoted exclusively to ItalianAmerican women, with a special welcome for Lesbians. If you're an
Italian-American woman wondering why your work is so often rejected,
or if you're anyone wondering why you so rarely corne across poetry,fiction, non-fiction, and art work by Italian-American women, send
SASE for writer's/artists' guidelines and subscription information to:
Rose Romano, P.O. Box 411223, SF, CA 94141-1223.
Jewish Lesbian Daughters of Holocaust Survivors meet for support &networking semi-annually. Write or call PO Box 6194, Boston, MA
02114, (617) 321-4252 for information, as well as info on a partners group,
for lesbians who are in relationships with JLDHS.
Cleis Press is seeking submissions for an anthology of personal writings by progressive women journalists, in both mainstream and alternative media. Send mss. or queries to Elayne Rapping and Felice
Newman, c/o Cleis Press, P.O. Box 8933, Pittsburgh, P A 15221, no later
than April 1, 1988.
Finding The Lesbians-an an thology on the subject of how Lesbians findeach other in a society that wants us to believe we don't exist, that eachof us is "the only one." Send mss. to: Julia Penelope and Sarah Valentine,
POB 606, Westford, MA 01886, with SASE. Deadline: July 1, 1988.
The Gallerie Annual is a new women's publication devoted to women's
art and women artists. First issue: June, 1988. For more information, or
to submit work for the 1989 issue, write: Gallerie Publications, 2901
Panorama Drive, North Vancouver, B.C., Canada V7G 2A4.
Frontiers: A Journal of Women's Studies, aims to bridge the gap between
university and community women. They are looking for papers on
Women and Worth, covering all aspects of women's economic activities, paid and unpaid. Send 2 copies to Frontiers, Women's Studies
Program CB 325, Univ. of Colorado, Boulder, CO 80309. Deadline:
March IS, 1988.
WIM Publications, woman- and Black-owned small press, is expanding
its product lines to further honor its commitment to poets. Publishing
women, African-Americans, lesbian and gay writers, WIM welcomesmanuscripts April-Aug. Send SASE (39ft stamp) for more informationand free catalogue to SDiane Bogus, WIM,2215-RMarket Dept PCP, SF,
CA 94114.

122

UPCOMING CONFERENCES
National Women's Studies Association (NWSA) 1988 Annual Conference: Leadership and Power: Women's Alliance for Social Change,
Minneapolis, MN, June 22-26. For information and registration: NWSA,
Univ.ofMinn,217NolteCenter,315PillsburyDr.S.E.,Minneapolis,MN
55455
Third International Feminist Book Fair will be held in Montreal June
14-21,1988. Bringing together editors of books, magazines and newspapers with writers, translators, distributors and booksellers from aroundthe world, the Fair provides a unique forum for feminists to network anddiscover each other's work while making feminist authors known to awider audience. For more information, write: 4060, boul. St-Laurent,
Suite 204, Montreal, Quebec, Canada, H2W lY9.
GENERAL
Mount Holyoke College Lesbian Alumnae Network! Send long SASE,
ideas do D. Albino, 32 Elm Street, Cambridge, MA 02139
Mountain Mama Packing & Riding Co. Horse & burrow pack trips into
the spectacular mountains ofN.M. Group & individual trips. For information, write Harpy, Rt. 1 Box 23, Chimayo, NM 87522 (505) 351-4047.
Women Make Movies announces its 15th Anniversary catalogue, withmore than 100 titles. Exciting new additions include Michelle
Parkerson's "Storme: The Lady of the Jewel Box," Sue Friedrich's"Damned if You Don't," and a series offilms by Latinas, "Punto de Vista:
Latina." Write: WMM, 225 Lafayette St., Suite 211, NYC, NY 10012.
Two in Twenty is a five-episode video soap opera by and for the lesbiancommunity. Closed captioned for the hearing impaired. To organize
screenings, or for more information: Two in Twenty, PO Box 105, Somerville, MA 02144.
Canadian Women's Directory, bi-lingual (French & English) directoryof nearly 2,000 names, address~s and numbers of women's groups andassociations. Order from Les Editions Communiqu'Elles, 3585 St. Urbain, Montreal, Quebec, Canada H2X 2N6, $8.95.
The Elizabeth Stone House is a feminist alternative to traditional
mental health services, serving women in emotional distress and theirchildren. They are in need of funding to support the new Transitional
Housing Program which will serve up to 50 women and children. All
Elizabeth Stone House programs are self-help. To make donations, or for
more information: PO Box 15, Jamaica Plain, MA 02130.
Flight of the Mind announces its fifth annual summer writing workshop for women, July 24th-31st. $420, three scholarships available. Send
SASE for brochure to: 622 SE 28th, Portland, OR 97214.

123

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