· sinister wisdom 46

DYKE LIVESSinister Wisdom 46
Spring 1992
Publisher: Sinister Wisdom, Inc.
Editor: Elana Dykewomon

Editorial readers and advisors: Betty Dudley, Caryatis Cardea, CathThompson, Laura Munter-Orabona, Lisa Carlin, Sauda Burch, SJ Kahn
Contributing editors: Gloria Anzaldua, Irena KJepfisz, Melanie Kayel
Kantrowitz
Typists and proofreaders: Cath Thompson, Caryatis Cardea, Laura
Tow, Nicole Appleberry, Susan Goldberg, Susan Levinkind
Office help, correspondence, ads and accounting: Anna Livia, Betsy Getaz,
Kim Swineheart, Laura Munter-Orabona, Leslie Rome, Sauda Burch, SJ
Kahn, Susan Levinkind, Valerie Valuch
Thanks to Bobby Rothschild and Rebecca Kutlin of Tamed Technology
Distribution and mailing crew: Betty Dudley, Cath Thompson, Gaile Kissin,
Janet Capone, Jasmine Marah, Laura Munter-Orabona, Max Dashu, Sabena
Stark, SJ Kahn, Susan Levinkind, Terri Fredlund
Fulfillment: Dolphin Waletzky
Volunteer Coordinator: Susan Levinkind
Reader for the Womyn's Braille Press: Judy Freespirit
Cover art: "Ali," photograph by Cathy Cade; cover design by Lesley
Kushner

SINISTER WISDOM, founded 1976
Former editors and publishers: Harriet Ellenberger (aka Desmoines)
and Catherine Nicholson (1976-81)
Michelle Cliff and Adrienne Rich 0981 -83)
Michaele Uccella (1983-84)
Melanie Kaye/Kantrowitz (1983-87)
Copyright© 1992 Sinister Wisdom, Inc. All rights reserved to individual artists and authors.
ISSN: 0196-1853. Printed in the U.S.A. on recycled paper.

Sinister Wisdom, Inc. • PO Box 3252 • Berkeley CA 94703 • US

_________________ _ Contents

3
7
9
10
18
19
20
21

Elana Dykewomon • Notes for a Magazine
Janet Aalfs • Lesbian Metaphysics (poem)
Terri Jewell • Reasons and Strange Rejections (poem)
Deb Parks-Satterfield • A Wedding Story (narrative)
Olga Krause (trans. by Sonja Franeta) • untitled (poem)
Teya Schaffer • Jackie (poem)
Susan Hawthorne • First Breath (poem)
Susan Hawthorne • New Tongue (poem)

§§§
22
35
37
38
41
42

Joanna Kadi • Dusk (narrative)
Lorrie Sprecher • war meditation (narrative)
Elana Dykewomon • Oakland: February 1991,lAM (poem)
Elizabeth Clare • At Seneca Army Depot (poem)
Deborah Schwartz • After the Movies of Treblinka (poem)
Lorrie Sprecher • big-sister God hates me (narrative)

§§§
47
49
52
61
62
63
72
73

Lierre Keith • What You Say (narrative)
Renee Hahn • King Victoria (narrative)
Sharon Lim-Hing • I Was Looking For You, I Was
Looking Good (narrative)
Diane Fraser • Boylston Street (poem)
Patt Kelly • Weight (poem)
Patricia Duncker • Betrayal (narrative)
davida singer • scorpio (poem)
Judy Freespirit • Persimmon (poem)

74
77
79
81
88
89

Karen Erlichman • The Sex Journal (narrative)
Teresa Stores • Cemetery Rules (narrative)
Margaret Blanchard • Dormant (poem)
Patricia· A Ring To Feel Loved (narrative)
Kate Taylor • Love Hangs on the Line (poem)
Donna Allegra • Brownstones (narrative)

§§§
98
103
106

111
115
120
122

Mev Miller • The Size of the Bed ... Matters (narrative)
Morgan Grayce Willow • Scylla and Charybdis (poem)
Judy MacLean • Cancer in Two Voices; 1 in 3: Women with
Cancer Confront an Epidemic; Cancer as a Women's Issue(book reviews)
Books Received
Contributors' Notes
Classified Advertising and Announcements
Upcoming Issues

§§§
ART
cover
2
8
17
36
38
71
78
97

Cathy Cade • Ali (photograph)
Sudie Rakusin • 1983 SW Logo (pen & ink)
Juarez Hawkins • Self-Portrait (computer graphic)
Anonymous. 1919 photograph, courtesy of theCommon Reader, New Salem, MA
Ellen Oppenheimer • Patriots Maze (quilt)
Lotza Luck • Winged Merp (pen & inks)
Lotza Luck • Calliope (pen & inks)
Lotza Luck • Diamonds (pen & ink)
Terri Jewell • Stephanie Byrd, Lesbian poet, in Pinkney
Park, Michigan, June 1989 (photograph)

- - - -________ Notes for a Magazine
Sinister Wisdom: Institution or radical zine?
After 15 years Sinister Wisdom is no longer a home business"owned" by its editor(s) - in November we received our 501(c)(3)approval from the government, and Sinister Wisdom, Inc. became
a tax exempt corporation. * What does that mean?
We pay less postage, we're able to apply for grants and yourdonations may now be tax-deductible. But in terms of structure,much remains to be seen. So far, my job is the same: shepherding
words through electron currents, balancing business with a hun. dred lesbian realities. My house looks the same - piles of paper on
every available surface, stacked under tables and in all the closets.
Sustained production is itself a form of institutionalization:
you or your work/ affinity / friendship / political group gets identified by the thing you make if you make it long enough. Add tothat the formality of petitioning the government for tax status,
codifying bylaws, naming a board of directors, having to fulfill
reporting requirements - the structure of the product can takeover the contents/intents in a flash. Way scary.
What I really wanna make is trouble. I want to sharpen theedges of dissatisfaction into action on every issue; I want to suspect
my own comfort and compromises; I want to see the patriarchy
end in my lifetime. Don't you? Don't you still?
I stop and laugh at myself: at 42 aren't you getting a little oldfor this? And I remember when I was 23 or so, volunteering at theNorthampton Women's Center. We had regular work days, and I
was in a work group with a 33-year-old straight anti-war activist.
I remember thinking: cool - she's still marching and pouring
blood on missiles, I hope I'm that radical when I'm that old. (Timefor an issue on ageism?)
A couple weeks ago I went to a benefit for the Whip tail Lizard
Lounge (a group of mostly young Bay Area dykes trying to makea womyn-only space, named for a parthenogenic lizard). There
were tables where dykes could network their wares, and the SFgalz were out with their zines - GIRLJOCK: the Magazine for the
Athletic Lesbian with a Political Consciousness, Lesbian Uprisings!
• Thanks to Susan Levinkind who managed to get us through the red-tape maze.

3

and On Our Rag (cover of #3: six crotch shots with tampons inglorious xerox). Zines are usually stapled 81/2 x II, 16-32 pagemagazines with interviews, gossip, news, tough talk, sex or
wannabe sex, cartoons -sometimes silly, often exquisitely pissed,
mostly white with multi-cultural aspirations, usually outrageous
as they can get. With daunting graphic styles that are really noharder to access than Zap Comix or the old xerox underground,they make you wonder.
All of us publishers traded zines - and now I wonder if they
think S W is cool or stodgy - real revolutionary dykes or a bunchof stiffs over 30 being like, so serious you could yawn. They makeme wonder about institutions and cycles: what comes from eachfresh wave of flash and rage? Is Sinister Wisdom part of the" es tablishment" of dykedom against which new generations have to define
themselves or is there a common ground, a way to talk about "isms"
and revolutionary change? Where's the bridge, the old/new sisterhood, the being of each other?
Of course we're still just beginning to get the gistofthis sisterhood
thing, aren't we? I thought the last SW, Lesbians and Class, was great- and certainly pointed out how far we have to go to ''be of eachother" in ways that matter. Now will middle- and upper-class dykes
take the ball and do something? Will poor and working-class dykes
have/ take more and more space? Where are the effects of the trouble
we make? I mean, can your consciousness just keep getting raised andraised until you glow from the great purity of it all, or, at a certain
point, do you do something? And what is that thing?
One of the tabloids I picked up at the Whiptail Lizard benefit
was a more traditional format newsletter for the Womyn's Barter
Network. I've always thought that barter was our only hedge
against total state control posed by the possibility of electronictransfers of funds (that is, a totalitarian future where you cannot
get any goods or services without a computerized access code andbarter becomes an illegal form of anarchy / rebellion). I often think
our resistance to barter is a measure of our dependence on the classsystem - our fear of having to evaluate the worth of what we haveto offer fairly within a lesbian context.
But how do we go about that evaluation? Is, for instance, onehour of doing laundry worth an hour of chiropractic? Most of thetime the emphasis is on the professional: she has to pay forequipment, she has to pay rent. But consider the dyke doing the4laundry: likely she doesn't own her own laundromat. * Often womyn
who offer support services in barter networks are womyn who can't
barter within their 9 to 5 survival jobs. In order to get health care, they
have to offer their labor. The chiropractor will probably make hertrade by filling in a gap in her appointment schedule; at the most
she'll stay late in her own office an extra hour. The launderer will be
expected to pick up the laundry, shlep it to the laundromat and bringit back - after she's done her regular 40 hour a week job. The
chiropractor gets support service done - she's got more leisure time.
The dyke doing laundry may end up working sixty hours a week,
doing more physical labor for which she goes into deeper barterdebt in order to get the physical care she needs. The chiropractor may
use her extra time to work more - but then she's using her "extra"
time to build wealth, while the launderer is using her time to support
a professional's practice. When we're talking about the value of work,
we're not just talking about the value of labor but the value of leisure.
As far as I know, no dykes have created a practical economics thattakes the value of leisure into account. So it's easier to just swallow
the dollar values that men enforce.
In "All the Pieces INever Wrote About Class" in 5 W #45, Caryatis
Cardea published the first critical analysis of casually-thought-out
barter systems that I've read. ** In her article she points out that thefolks most likely to have stuff to swap and feel entitled and at easedoing it would be artisans and professionals. "This would increase
their disposable income for the purchase of more consumer items
which they can maintain for free through the lesbian network. .. "and "contribute to the gaps" between the classes.
Theoretically it would be possible to use that new disposable
income to set up a lesbian fund or support lesbian projects, andeventually form self-sufficient communities made up of dykes
from all class backgrounds, withdrawing support from men's
economies. But we haven't done much of that with the disposable
income we ha ve now, ha ve we? If middle- and upper-class womyn*For the purpose of this example, I'm assuming the dykes have the class status of
their work. Of course the launderer could be an upper-class lesbian "trying to makeends meet" on investment income and the chiropractor, a working-class dyke
paying off school loans and supporting two kids. What would that change and how
would we account for it - theoretically and in practise?
** Many of my thoughts around the problems of barter got clarified in conversation
with Caryatis; whose editorial work continues to be invaluable to me and themagazine.

5

have more time and resources, it's not likely that the "trickle
down" effect will do any more for poor and working-class dykes
than reaganomics did for the homeless.
But actually starting a network is gutsy and rough - it opens you
up to all these questions. And doing it, even if we don't get it right our
first 310 attempts, may lead us to the well-considered barter system,to new structures that work. The womyn who organize the Womyn's
Barter Network* consider our economic system a "giant pyramidscam" and wantto see womyn getting the fruits oftheir labor without
having to "give them your last dollar with your last breath," ** wantto "find a way to exchange services which does not fall into the sameclassist ways of thinking we've been brainwashed into believing." ***They see themselves as providing a forum for discussion and theory
as well as a list of the offers and needs of participating womyn.
Developing real barter networks may, in fact, be crucial to our
individual and collective survival- but we have to talk clearly
about who profits and what's done with that profit. We have to
make sure our networks aren't just clubs for dykes-like-us. And
when we think we've stretched ourselves and crea ted an accessible
system for every dyke we can imagine, we have to re-examine
what we've done, imagine what access might mean all over again.
Speaking of sharing access - we want Sinister Wisdom tobe an open access dyke space. Lesbians who want to guest edit anissue are encouraged to let us know. There is some process to go
through (that is, the editorial group will decide yes or no), and we
make a contractual agreement. After that, we pay the regular costs,
and work with guest editors on production. It helps if you live
nearby, but it's not critical. We hope our future will expand with
the intensity of new vision. The Italian-American Women's Issue,
Lesbians and Class and the upcoming Lesbians of Color Issue are
gifts for the mind and spirit.
One of the things I hope will come out of Sinister Wisdom's incorporation is that more dykes will use this journal as lesbian community
space. A place where we make trouble and change together.

• Send $2 for a copy of th e nex t iss ue to: 1087 Valencia St. # F, SF, CA 941100rcall Ren
at 415-648-2488. To ge t th e other zin cs, talk to your local wo men's bookstore .
•• Arru gul a in Wo myn's Barter Netwo rk #2, Fall 1991.
••• Ren, Ibid.

6

Janet Aalfs

Lesbian Metaphysics

Of all the holes I've jumped
in the air, being a dyke
is the holeyest. Look,even my tracks
have no edges. I leap, spinaround once, both feet
off the ground, brightsun everywhere and below
my body, no shadow.
How different, I think, eventalented to leave
no trace. But practical?
Who will wonder where I am?
Who will muse about me
if they never knew
I was here?
I keep jumping holes
in the air. . Sometimes a meteor
falls through one and burns
a crater in the earth.
I did that, I think
to myself, pointing.

"I keep jumping holes in the air" comes from a Dutch saying, "een gaa tinde lucht
springen," used when one isn't making any p rogress.

7Self-Portrait
Juarez Hawkins

8Terri Jewell

Reasons and Strange Rejections
She used to weave blankets
of smoked kelp, beige ribbon
attach herself to nameless animals
that scratched the surface of her nights.
Did her parents really die?
Was she greater than she knew?
Did she wear black leather pants
for the gay girls in the bar?
She drove up to my housestretched her dreadlocked hairover frameless wire chairs
told me a dream had led her there.
Did birds peck her windowsill?
How quickly had she walked
the pathway to her soul?
Does she tongue without asking?
She stood naked in my mirrors
conjured all juju prophecy
over soiled plates, left-over news
mutual friends without partners.
Was she foolish beyond her years?
When did the women welcome her?
Had they discovered her excretions?
The lines she hid with scarves?
She shaved my rattan matsafter pitching the rune tiles
called my name out seven times
then left without a trace.
Did friendly fire find her?
Did it come alive in her veins?
Did little boys throw rocks at her?
When w ill she ever stop?

9

Deb Parks-Satterfield

A Wedding Story
Right in the middle of Yahtzee, Annie and Jill announced thatthey were getting married. "After being together for all these years,
it's time we publicly acknowledge our relationship and makeanother step toward a more global way of thinking," said Jill.
"Global, huh?" I snickered. "Before you tell Zimbabwe, why
don't you tell your parents?"
Risa, my girlfriend, kicked me under the card table andsnarled into my ear, "Deb, honey, be nice!" She then turned to ourguests, smiled through clenched teeth and hissed, "You can dress'em up ... " We finished the adage together, " .. .but you can't take'em out." I hoped our laughter and attention to the game would
squelch any further talk of weddings.
Our foursome got together in each other's homes once or twice amonth to gossip, eat, play board games and marvel at the longevity of
our relationships. For several weeks I had a bad feeling that the hot
topic of marriage was about ready to be shoved to the front burner.
The last time Risa and I had dinner at Annie and Jill's theircoffee table was loaded with what looked like every piece ofprinted material ever created on the subject of ceremonies, rites
and celebrations of commitment. Somehow I managed to avoid
the issue that night. And if I worked hard enough I'd avoid it thisnight, too! I refused to believe that these women were about to cavein to societal pressure. Silently, I sizzled.
Were we fast becoming a Lesbian nation of Lucy and Ethels,
Rhoda and Marys, or wors t of all, June and Junes, prancing aroundin housedresses and pearls waiting for some fool to walk throughthe door saying, "Honey, I'm home!"? I could see it all now, heartshaped meat loaves and brains turned to oatmeal. I stayed quiet for
as long as I could.
"Can't see why you think a wedding is necessary. I know you've
been together for 16 years, you know you've been together for 16
years, even the postman knows you've been together for 16 years!
So what's the point?" I bhlrted.
10

''We feel that having some sort of ceremony is an important
political and personal statement of our commitment to each other."
Jill intoned in her best I'm-just-trying-to-educate-you voice. "Youknow as well as I do that there are no legal or moral supports fordykes in this society. We have to find ways to affirm and empower
ourselves.""And holy deadlock is the answer?!" I yelped. "I know what itis, you just want presents! I can't believe you two are willing to sellout and submit yourselves to that ancient, heterosexist bondage
ritual. Get a grip on reality, girls. Matrimony is not the answer toempowerment!"
Much to Risa's dismay I proceeded to rant on and on. I pulled
out every tired, old shred of political rhetoric against marriage that
I could think up. Everyone seemed engulfed in ecstasy at the prospectof a lezzie wedding. Speaking lovingly of macrobiotic wedding
cakes, the moon, blue chip bond funds, babies and second mortgages they all laughed and floated off into the living room.
"I've heard just about enough. That's it!" I hollered and threw
the dice across the room. All five dice smacked the wall and landedon the floor in a perfect Yahtzee, all sixes. Everybody took this asa blessing from the Goddess. It was my "lucky" toss so, of course,
they figured it only made sense that I should be Matron-of-Honor.
"Are you all out of your minds? I haven't set foot in a church
since my First Holy Communion when my veil got caught in the
Holy water font. The whole damned thing tipped into Sister
Timothy's lap! AND I have never dressed up in anything froo-frooor mint green! Next I suppose you'll want me to go to a department
store and have my face done by some woman with big hair!""Come in here, hush up and sit down!" commanded Risa. I
dragged myself into the living room and threw my bod yon the couch.
"I really don't understand why you're so threatened by this,Deb," said Annie. ''We're planning on doing it up nice in a very
centered and womanly way. The ceremony is going to be held on
the land we bought up north, in the clearing I told you about."
I shrieked and flew off the couch. "Me? Outside? In the woods?
You know I don't do dirt! We-l-l-l, you're not gonna catch me jiggin'around like some damned wood sprite with my bare chest flappin'in the breeze. I will be keeping all my clothes ON, thank you! And
if! SEE any naked breasts, I'm leaving!" They just smiled and kept

11

planning. Eventually, after some coaxing, teasing and a double-darefrom Risa, I gave in and went to the wedding. At the last minute Risa
was called to work, so I had to brave the nuptials alone.
The day of the blessed event, I agreed to give a ride to a couple
I didn't know, who were close friends of Jill's. I picked them up thatmorning and something told me I was in for a rough trip. When I
honked the horn, a pair of thin, blonde women skipped down the
walk. They were dressed as if they'd been caught in explosions atPier One, L.L. Bean and Banana Republic. They looked ethereal,ethnic, gauzy yet practical all at once. This pair also reeked ofpatchouli oil. I, on the other hand, had sprayed on so much insect
repellent my pants were clinging to my legs and my butt waspermanently glued to the driver's seat.
"Hi, and blessed be," they chirped in unison. "I'm Birch Bark
and this is my friend, Autumn Wind. What's that awful smell? We
both have allergies."
I thought quickly, then in my best Jamaican accent replied, "I'ma Voo-doo princess. What you're smellin' is the juju bag I carry in
my purse.""Oh," said Ms. Wind, "we respect all religions, except Christianity, of course, so it's o.k. We'll just hop in and open the windows.""You just do that," I purred.
Fifty miles into the journey I almost got pulled over for speeding. It was either that or overdose on patchouli. My companions
sang Kay Gardner songs for the next 100 miles un til they fell asleep.
Or did they pass out? I couldn't tell which.
Finally, we found the hand painted sign that directed us to an
unpaved road. We trekked in about a quarter mile and came to thewedding site which was nestled in a beautiful clearing. The surrounding pines were decorated with fresh flower garlands andtheir smells filled the air. In the very center of the clearing stood astone altar. All around the altar, growing right out of the ground,
were hundreds of day lilies, black-eyed susans and other summer
flowers I'd never seen before. I was overcome by the sheer unadulterated beauty of it all! This skulking euphoria crept up on me.
Suddenly, I was seized with a woodsy, organic, crunchy-granolakinda-bean-sprouty feeling. I actually started to understand why
people were so enamored with the out of doors.
Just as I was beginning to unwind, a half-naked ephemeral flit
12

danced up to me and tried to mash a halo of dried flowers onto myhead. "Do I look like a Smurf?" I screamed. "Do you understandthat dried flowers and nappy hair do not mix? I don't wanna bepickin' that shit outta my hair for the next week!"
Ms. Flit, obviously high on life, continued to leap about andgrin."I know you," she pronounced delightedly, "Matron-of-Honor,
perfect Yahtzee, all sixes." She waved the crusty crown in my face
and whined, "Everyone in the wedding party is wearing these. You
can't be the only one not wearing a halo. We're videotaping thewhole ceremony and it just wouldn't look right. Come on, let me
help you tie it on."Well, I had come this far because I loved Annie and Jill. I
genuinely wanted to be a part of one of the most special days intheir lives. So I stood still and let her anchor that stupid crumbly
thing to my head.
"By the way, gift table is on the right, food far left, Brenda's
giving neck rubs behind that oak and Pilar is reading Tarot downby the creek. Enjoy," she called over her shoulder as she skipped off
to find the next victim.
The day was moving into afternoon and all I wanted to do wassit down. As I walked across the clearing, a realization hit me.
Women were seated directly on the grass. No blankets. No lawn
chairs. Nothing. I began to panic! I can't sit on grass. Things live ingrass. Animals pee on grass. Maybe it wasn't too late to find Birch
Bark and have her whittle me a chair. What was I supposed to do?
Frantically, I searched the group for some sign of Jill or Annie, but
no luck. 'Well, at least there was food here. When in doubt, eat.
I assumed the spread would consist of your average dyke fare.
You know, wheat-free this, rice flour that, tofu ridden this, carob
laden that and the ubiquitous blue corn chips, all undercooked andbland as Pat Boone. I knew it would be futile to look for chicken.
When I arrived at the table, none of the food resembled anything I'dever eaten. Among the entrees was a black paste encircled by graycrackers. There were also purple things floa ting in purple liquid, agelatinous steamy casserole and some crunchy red stuff thatwomen kept popping into their mouths and commenting on how
yummy the batch tasted. In the center of this repast sat a hugebrown mound. That was either the wedding cake or beavers had
crawled up from the creek and begun construction of their new
13home right in the middle of the table. By this time, I was starving.
I would've danced the mambo butt naked across Montana for justa Ritz cracker and a slice of cheese! I had to find Annie and Jill!
They'd know where the REAL food was hiding. My blood sugar
level dropped dangerously low. I wobbled around the perimeter ofthe clearing, feeling almost drunk and bumping into the guests as
I mumbled, "HaveyouseenAnnieorJill?" I stumbled back over towhat I loosely referred to as the food table and discovered thatsomeone had brought a plain mixed green salad. Mine! Mine! I
swooped down and hung over that bowl like a vulture. After I' deaten, my head started to clear and my eyes unglazed. I leaned
against a tree and drifted into that full tummy coma. All of asudden somebody shrieked, "Goddess! Oh, my Goddess!" Thenoise came from the direction of the creek, so everyone made a madscramble for the water.
Once there, we encountered a large Black woman in a brightyellow toga. She was pacing, leaping and yelling under a gigantic
maple. She too was wearing crunchy dried flowers on her head.
Ms. Yellow Toga pointed up into the branches. "My poor baby," shemoaned, "My Terpsichore, my darling. I told her not to go up there
but she insisted. I turned my back for one second, one second. She's
not healthy at all, you know, she's due for her asthma shot at 4:30
and it's already 5:00. Oh, Goddess, what am I going to do?" Hervoice trailed off into a distressed sob. I looked around. We were alljust standing there frozen like a pile of Lincoln Logs. I couldn't
believe it! I didn't know about these girls but I'd had my veggies
and was fired up! I felt prepared to do whatever it would take tosave that poor little lamb.
''What is the matter with you women?" I cried. "Let's help thesister get her child out of that tree." I started forward, expecting
them all to follow, when someone whispered in my ear, "It's not her
kid, it's her cat.""Say what? Why would anyone in her right mind bring her cat
to a wedding?"
The woman who'd whispered to me straightened up and fixed
me with a look like Superman doing x-ray vision. "You sound quite
hostile and just a little judgmental. I think your aura needs cleaning."
Before I could tell her to go get the Dustbuster, someone
shouted, "Stand aside!" As we all stepped back, Birch Bark made14

a running start and hurtled herself onto the tree. She was plastered
to the trunk and hung there for a moment, then she shinnied up,
turned, gave the "thumbs-up" sign and disappeared into thebranches.
We stared up into the tree for what seemed like hours. My neckhurt like the devil. I couldn't even see the beast. Then I spotted her.
Contentedly snuggled on a wide bough was a snotty looking
Siamese that had absolutely no intention of coming down to earth
in this lifetime. I felt kind of sorry for Birch Bark wedged up there
doing that "nice kitty, here kitty" baloney. Each time her hand got
close enough to grab, the little rat catcher would mutate into Pussy
from Hell. Then just as quickly it would turn back into Miss Prim.
The only thing Birch Bark seemed to be getting from her act ofbravery was a pair of badly skinned knees.
The situation, in my opinion, was reaching maddening proportions. I happened to look down and there at my feet lay a
massive pinecone. I picked it up and thought, "Maybe I'll give
Terpsichore a bit of a hand." I wondered if! could put some serious
velocity on that pinecone without hurting the impudent puss. I
knew I'd probably bring the wrath of the whole Lesbian universe
down on my head but I took aim and let that prickly baby fly!
Bull's-eye! The cone thwacked Terpsichore's fuzzy flanks. She
leaped, all teeth and claws, a parabolic trajectory soaring over ourheads. Before you could say "inappropriate," she landed WHAM!
right in the middle of the gift table. Vibrators, power tools, sensible
cotton underwear and tie-dyed jog bras flew in every direction.
In the confusion that ensued, I escaped from the crowd andsprinted for the altar. I figured if they were going to kill me, we might
as well turn it into a ritual. My freeze-dried crown bounced merrily as
I ran straight into a teeny, bird-like woman clothed in black. How
could retribution have arrived so quickly? After all I was only
trying to help. I hadn't done any real damage. Terpsichore walked
away from the crash jolted but intact. Even so, guilt hung aroundme like fog. I fell to my knees on the clammy turf at Bird Woman'sfeet, stammered out the whole story and begged forgiveness.
"For heaven's sake, get up. You must be Catholic. I get that
response quite frequently from Catholics. You'd think I'd be accustomed to it by now."'Wait a minute," I said, "Just who are you anyway?"15

She po in ted at her clerical collar . "Reverend Ramona. I'm here
to perform the ceremony. I've been doing some impromptu counseling with Annie and Jill to alleviate their stress. Cold feet. You
know how it is."''What? You mean you've actually talked with them today?""Oh sure. They're in the trailer down on the other side of thecreek.""Trailer, they're in a trailer?" Before she could utter anotherword I sprinted down the path and across the foot bridge thatspanned the creek.
I arrived at the trailer and breathed a sigh of relief. Finally.
Some sanctuary amidst this chaos. An oasis of calm, a snug harbor.
AREAL toilet! I flung the door open and the atmosphere was, howshall I put this, a tad thick. Jill was stretched out in a hammock
sucking back one pop after another, eating big floppy slices of
pepperoni pizza and watching Madonna videos. Annie paced
back and forth with her arms crossed tightly over her chest.
These words popped out of Annie like little explosions: "Thewedding is OFF! I think we must have been in the grip of someheavy duty PMS when we decided to do this number!""You got that right," Jill mumbled between munches.
"I mean geez, Deb," snapped Annie, "You were absolutely
right. A ping heterosexuals is not an act of empowermen t, it's an actof stupidity. I honestly don't know what we were thinking of.
We've been in here all damned day trying to sort everything out.
I'm sorry, Deb."
I felt like a sandbag with the edge torn off. My whole bodysagged. The tears gathered in the pit of my stomach and started
that slow roller coaster climb to my throat. Then I caught a look atmyself in the mirror. My halo, which by now was completely
destroyed, had collapsed down around my neck. I appeared to bemarinated from head to toe in leaves, mud and grass. My blouse
twisted east, my slacks twisted west and there were cherry tomato
seeds stuck to the corners of my mouth.
"Yeah," chomped Jill, ''We know you're upset, so are we, but ..."
"Get out of that hammock! Put that pizza down and turn that
TV off," I growled. "This event is going to continue as planned.
And do you know why?" Their eyes were as wide as banjos. They
thought I'd lost my mind. "Because I ventured all the way out into
16

the woods for you two today. My hair is full of mummified flower
parts, my clothes are ripped to shit, the dyke tribunal may have put
a bounty on my head for cat torture and I STINK! Now. You aregonna get your butts out there, smile and be happy, dammit!"
There was a long pause. They both just stared at me. Then Jill
sighed. 'Wow, Deb, you always know just the exact thing to say ina crisis situation." They hugged each other, brushed off theirmatching tuxedos and hugged me. Then hand in hand Annie andJill strolled out the door. I picked up a piece of pizza, stretched out
on the hammock and turned on the TV. Heh, I could always catch
the wedding on video, right?

©1991 Deb Parks-Satte rfield

1919 anonymous photograph
Courtesy of the Common Reader, New Salem, Mass.
17

Olga Krause

untitledtranslated from the Russian by Sonja Franeta

What was your pink nipple
staring at so intently
while I kissed
your other breast?
Why were you crying?
It's too badthat this frightbefore first tenderness
will not be repeated.

OJIbf'A

KH18E

K)?tl QVO'.1'p9.J1 'l'1K npJrC'1'8.ZloHo
or BOft P080BHfi COOOR,

R 01',n;0~PJ'rYIO

rpy,n;1o'1' e6e If n;eJIOB8x8?

R 8'feV 'I'll nJIflR8J[8?

-q TO 8TO'1' C'l'p8Xn pe,n; nepBO~ HexHOC'l'WO
yi!.t9 lIe nOBTOpli'l'CJ!.

18

Teya Schaffer

JackieI keep her tucked under my tongue a small
space for a grown woman she pushes the sinews;
I can't leave her home.
I curl her with my tongue, she used to
sit in the curve where neck meets shoulder
dressed in plaid and jeans protesting
her deathbut no one would remark hereyes everywhere else and often on mine
how do you do, how are you doing
but what is my loss compared to hers I pulled
her in, no sense continuing the embarrassmentof ear tilting to her voice.
I tucked her under my tongue
comfort to my senses
and wore the gaze of one who listens
to inner voices. Conversations
are infrequent, people see
the odd grimace of her
moving through my mouth and hesitate
when my lips open, she calls out her name.

19Susan Hawthorne

two from The Language in My Tongue -A sequence of 23 poems on epilepsy

First Breath

The first breath I took
was late.
I've been holding it ever since.
An amniotic sea pushingme forwards.
But something was holding me back.
The doctor was late, so
I was too.
He breathed his lunch on me.

20

New Tongue
You say that later
they said that when your memory failed
you recognized only your sister
your companion.
You say some thought you were dead .
But when, after three days you woke.
Your ears heard the world as if for the first time.
Your eyes saw the white cockatoo long before she flew over
dropping feathers on your head.
You sang in a new tongueor so others said.
You picked up a large stick brandishing it at all
except your sister your companion.
You say that in your dreamin some kind of fit or seizure
you were entrusted with language.

21

Joanna Kadi

Dusk
Nawal timidly opened the door of the cabin that would be home
for two weeks and looked into the eyes she had coveted for an
eternity. Sparkling deep blue, open, eager. Yes. As if made to order,these were the eyes she had been dreaming about and wishing for.
The mouth beneath those beautiful eyes opened and sounds
came forth but at first the words did not register. Finally they brokethrough Nawal's consciousness.
" ...expect us to share this tiny little dump. Can you believe it?
There is no way I am going to be able get my stuff in that thing
they're calling a dresser. I mean, it's not like we're only here for aweekend! And the bathroom. You can't even believe it! The mirror
is hardly big enough to see my face in. Plus it's warped. But I'mtrying not to let it depress me. I keep telling myself, 'The darkest
hour is before the dawn.'"
The words rolled off Nawallike olive oil. She just looked into
those eyes. Perhaps if she wished hard enough they would become
hers, replacing the ones her last boyfriend had called the color ofshit. It dawned on Nawal that the words had ceased, and she
wondered why.
"Well, come one. What's your name? Is it some big secret?"
Nawal's voice cracked as she began talking. "Hello. How do
you do? I'm Nawal.""You're what?""Nawal.""Naaaah - well?" Emphasis on the wrong syllable.
"No, Nawal.""I'll have to find a nickname for you. That's too weird. I know,
you can be Willie. My name's Jennifer. Hey, is that all the stuff you
brought? Maybe I could have one of your drawers. What do you
say? Alright, great."
Several campers made futile attempts to pronounce Nawal's
name that day. At the evening get-together led by Ms. Taylor,Colleen gave up after the fourth try, annoyance in her voice as she
asked, "What kind of name is it?"22

Nawal hunched her shoulders instinctively, as if protecting
herself from a blow about to be delivered. "Palestinian.""Palestinian?" Blue eyes widened. "Palestinians are terrorists."
Did it ever stop? N awal gave the stock answer her parents hadtaught her. "I'm not a terrorist."''Well, I hope not. I don't want to be at art camp with a terrorist.
I think that - ""Students," Ms. Taylor spoke sharply. "My first rule is thateveryone is treated with respect. I will not tolerate any derogatory
comments about a student's ethnic and cultural heritage. Anyone
making such comments will not be allowed in my class. Do I makemyself clear?"
Ms. Taylor made herself so clear that no one mentioned theword terrorist again in her presence. But the whispering aroundcertain diningroom tables continued, and on Tuesday in the showerroom, Colleen and Roberta asked ''Willie'' if she liked being aterrorist.
Ms. Taylor's words to Colleen had stunned Nawal, and she
studied her teacher carefully. Most nights Ms. Taylor talked on the
pay telephone, and N awal sauntered casually by enough times todiscern she always seemed to be talking to Nancy. Ms. Taylor had
green eyes and short sandy hair. She wore funny-looking sandals
and long, baggy shorts. When Douglas asked, "Are you married?"
she laughed before saying no.
Tucked away among the woodlands of northern Ontario, theart camp had originally been a Boy Scout camp. Nawal had neverleft Hamilton and she found the vast open space and silence
frightening. She felt engulfed by the huge lake and never-ending
sky but enjoyed the trees because they reminded her of the two in
her backyard. She found herself drawn to a circle of pine trees set backfrom the cabins and trails, and she began visiting them each day.
Nawal was thrilled to be at the camp and couldn't understandthe complacency of the others. Perhaps private art lessons andother camps had jaded them. Nawal's only instruction to date had
been through her high school, and she hadn't realized its limitations until now.
She still found it hard to believe that out of hundreds of highschool students hoping to attend the camp, she had been chosen.
Nawal never would have applied. She heard about the competi-

23tion from her art teacher Mr. Cummings, an extremely tall man
with a precise British accent that for some reason frightened her.
He told Nawal to remain after class and she sat in terror the full
hour wondering what she had done wrong. But Mr. Cummings
had only told her she had a good chance in the competition and hewould submit her paintings.
Nawal said nothing to her parents, assuming she would not bechosen. When Mr. Cummings triumphantly announced her success to the class, she felt mostly embarrassment and wishedeveryone would stop looking. That night she told her parents asthey did after-dinner chores, her father Hani washing dishes,
Nawal drying, and her mother Jameelah making lunches for the
next day. They responded to her news as expected, anxiety overriding everything else. How far away? Are all the costs reallycovered? Tiredness etched keenly in their faces, they told Nawal
they were proud, hugged her and sent her off to bed. As she drifted
into sleep, Nawal could hear anxious murmurs from the kitchen.
The first few days passed in a blur. N awalloved the structured art
classes, and soaked up the teachers' words with fierce intent. She felt
alive and at home with drawing pencil in hand. She also loved thetime after dinner spent with the circle of pine trees and for the firsttime realized the magic that happened at twilight. In Hamilton,
dusk passed and night fell without her noticing. But not here.
However, the rest of the free time alarmed her. She used it topractice new sketching exercises while the others ran to the lake andjumped in exuberantly. They couldn't believe she didn't know how to
swim. "Everyone knows how to swim," Jennifer said. "Get with it."Just that day Jennifer completed a stunning depiction of anorchid with bold strokes of purple that seemed to move the flower
past the confinement of the page. This joined her other recentlyfinished painting of a smart set of cabins nestled in a white-sandcove that was, she explained, the resort in Hawaii she had visitedseveral times. In both of these she had used watercolor techniquesthat Nawal did not know. Upon discovering this, she told Nawal
to meet her in the studio next morning at 8:00. This became aregular occurrence.
At one session, Jennifer patiently explained a concept using
sponges. When Nawal had trouble executing the technique, Jennifer advised "Don' t give up. Remember, 'The darkest hour is24

before the dawn.' You're almost there." After practicing several
times, Nawal could perform the technique adequately.
When Jennifer left, Nawal lingered to look at Ms. Taylor's
artwork. One series focused on patterns and colors, some of which
made Nawal think of lines, forms and colors in new ways. Nawal
paused in front of one painting and realized with a start the patternmirrored the one in the scarf she had unexpectedly come across inher mother's closet a year ago. Her mother had taken the intricately-marked black and white material from her and told Nawal
not to ask any questions.
Every day Nawallooked into Jennifer's eyes and wanted themfor her own. This dream was the oldest one she had. It had begun
in grade school, when she had also wanted blond curly hair, paleskin, a light dusting of freckles, and a delicate body. These days she
didn't care about hair, skin, freckles or bod y; that had stopped after
Cousin Cecilia's visit.
Cousin Cecilia had not been at all what Nawal expected. When
she arrived, she strode confidently into the tiny living-room, a tallwoman with a muscular body, cigarette dangling from a corner ofher mouth, dozens of bracelets clinking on her arms, wearing atight-fitting red dress. She kissed Nawal extravagantly, leaving
gobs of lipstick on her face, but somehow Nawal didn't mind.
At dinner she had third helpings of everything, and drank two
more beers than Nawal's father. Nawal couldn't keep her eyes off
her. Cousin Cecilia had teased and sprayed her black hair anddrawn heavy black lines under and over her eyes. Her brown skin,covered with rose-scented oil, shone like marble. She talked a lot,and so did Hani and Jameelah; Nawal had rarely seen them soanimated.
When Tommy threw the paper by the front door, Cousin
Cecilia exclaimed, "Don't tell me you subscribe to the newspaper!"as shocked as if they had committed some heinous crime. "Darlings, all these newspapers are owned by fascists. You'll never reada smidgen of truth in them."
Nawal puzzled over the word. Fash-ist? What did it mean? She
looked it up in the dictionary but couldn' t find it. Cousin Cecilia used
it often, especially when talking about bosses and businessmen.
Cousin Cecilia stayed up until 5 in the morning and slept until
2 in the afternoon. After a large breakfas t, she lay in the yard for two25

hours in her leopard skin bikini that exposed the snake tattooed onher left shoulder. "You can never be too dark," she told Nawal,
critically examining her tan lines in the mirror. "The darker the
better. Your skin is quite nice, but you could spend a little more timein the sun."
One night Cousin Cecilia belly-danced for them. She appeared
in a strapless, short black dress that hugged her body, the inevitablebracelets, hair teased extra high, the snake in full view. Hani put onmusic Nawal had never heard, so why did it sound familiar?
Cousin Cecilia began to dance. Hani and Jameelah held hands
and stepped rhythmically around the outside of the room, smilingand nodding. And Cousin Cecilia danced. Her body moved,
shook, writhed . Cousin Cecilia became a snake on the ground, abird in the air, a snake again, then a beautiful woman with feet
indistinguishable from brown earth.
Cousin Cecilia took a break, but one of her favorite songs began
playing before she finished her cigarette. So she danced as thecigarette dangled from her mouth, she danced down on her knees
and arched back, back, back, hands and pelvis continuing thedance, then she completed the arch and her head touched the floor,
and chills covered Nawal's body.
The next afternoon Cousin Cecilia tried to teach some basic
moves to N awal, putting those eerily familiar records on full blast.
But she didn't get too far.
"Loosen up,loosen up," Cousin Cecilia chided N a wal between
chugs of beer. "Let those hips go."Nawal tried to no avail. Cousin Cecilia came and stood very
close behind her. "Just follow my body," she said as she moved herpelvis back and forth against Nawal's buttocks.
Oh - that movement! Nawal's hips moved freely. "Yes, yes,that's it!" Cousin Cecilia cried. "Follow my feet."
They tooka few steps together before N awal' s feet, legs and pelvis
proved unable to coordinate their movements, and the two of themcrashed to the floor, arms and legs entangled, laughing uproariously.
Nawal could not remember when she had laughed as hard.
"Hey," Cousin Cecilia said once they had disengaged themselves, "keep practicing. Put the music on extra loud. That helps.
Now how about showing me those paintings of yours?"
Up to this point, Cousin Cecilia had seen only the portraits of
Nawal's parents at work - Hani pushing a broom and Jameelah
26washing a window - that hung in the livingroom. N awal brought
out her vinyl carrying-case and sat silently as Cousin Cecilia
looked carefully and slowly at each painting, pausing only to puff
on her cigarette or drink her beer. After examining the last one, she
sat for a minute, then said so quietly Nawal could barely hear.
"Those fascist pigs sure get around, don't they?"'What?""Honey, you have real talent, a real gift. You've got to dosomething with it, something for us."Us?
"Nawal," Cousin Cecilia leaned closer and Nawal realized
how achingly beautiful her face was, "Nawal, why does everyone
you paint have blonde hair and blue eyes?"
N awal sat in stunned silence. She didn't know why; she didn't
even know that they did. But when she recalled each of thosepaintings in her mind's eye, she realized the truth of Cousin
Cecilia's words.
"I, I don't know why, I, I guess it just happened that way.""Nawal, you come from people with dark eyes and dark hairand brown skin. Draw your own people, Nawal."
What on earth was Cousin Cecilia talking about? It scared
Nawal at the same time as she desperately wanted to hear more.
She also had to fight back tears.
"Nobody's drawing us, Nawal," Cousin Cecilia said, "maybe
that's what you have to do."Justthen the arm of the secondhand record player began grinding
over and over the last section of the album. The moment broke.
When Cousin Cecilia took herself, her proud darkness, her
three large suitcases back to the train station, Hani looked older
than ever, tears streaked Jameelah's face, and Nawal hugged her
for a long time. "Stay away from the fascists," Cousin Cecilia told
her, "and keep drawing. I'll see you sooner than you think."
N awal sat down the day after Cousin Cecilia left and, with onlya pencil, drew her dancing. She caught Cousin Cecilia at the
moment before her head touched the floor. The graceful lines of herbody, the muscles in her long legs, the snake on her shoulder, thecigarette in her mouth, all emerged from the pencil in stark,piercing beauty.
Nawal sent the drawing to Cousin Cecilia, and it became her
prized possession. Cousin Cecilia hung it in a prominent spot in27

her livingroom, actually moving some of the hundreds of objects
in that room to give it more space. She would drag strangers off thestreet to show them the picture.
By the end of the first week of art camp, Nawal had talked
several times with Dwayne, a thin boy from Belleville. He had
approached her one day in class to compliment her latest sketchingeffort. Dwayne showed Nawal his drawing of a large bird withoutstretched wings taking off from a marshland.
"What kind of bird is that?""A blue heron," Dwayne replied . "My favorite bird. Something about them feels magical."A few times Nawal had noticed Dwayne sitting alone during
meals. Once Nawal approached to ask if she might sit down. Whenshe got close enough to see the look on his face, Nawal stopped. It
was that aching loneliness N awal had felt upon her own face every
time she thought of her mother and father. Unthinkingly shefollowed Dwayne's gaze out the window. It ended at Kevin.
Kevin? How could Dwayne be lonely for someone from Toronto hehad only known for a week? They weren't even friends. Kevin was
too busy showing off for Roberta to make friends with anyone else.
Not knowing what to do, Nawal turned and walked away, sitting
down at a table with Jennifer and Colleen.
One night, Jennifer and Nawal sat up in bed and talked as theyoften did. Or rather, Jennifer talked and Nawallooked hopefullyin her eyes. Nawal wore a long cotton T-shirt she had admiredyesterday when Jennifer put it on. Jennifer had promptly given it
to her.
"I got another letter from Bill today. He's been pining away forme ever since I left. He told me he's finally decided where he's
going to get his M.B.A.
"I just don't know what school to go to. Sometimes it makes meanxious but I just remember, 'The darkest hour is before the dawn.'
I mean, I suppose I should consider O.CA., but Toronto? I'm
thinking of Paris. That's where real artists go. I could take my easel
down by the Seine and paint and then stop at one of the cafes. It
would be so romantic."
Nawal wondered absently about the Seine and how Jennifer
knew real artists went to Paris and what O.c.A. meant. Oh -28

maybe the Ontario College of Art. Mr. Cummings said she should
apply there. She hadn't asked about money.
"Bill told me about the latest meeting of the Young P.C's. His
family has been in the Conservative party forever."Nawal, who had never met anyone who didn't vote N.D.P.,
didn't answer. Soon Jennifer's voice faded and both girls slept.
Arriving early in the artroom the next day after lunch, Nawal
looked thoughtfully at her pictures, trying to follow Ms. Taylor's
suggestion of being her own best critic. Nawal realized her paintings contained a certain element of disharmony that had become
more pronounced over the past week. The bodies of the men andwomen were rougher, stronger, darker, even their faces had begun
to take on some of those qualities, but the eyes remained blue and. delicate. This resulted in the creation of subjects 'w ho appeared offbalance, uneven, fragmented, not quite whole.
Nawal stared at the one landscape in her collection. Ms. Taylor
had urged her to try her hand at this, since Nawal always drew
people. Nawal had obediently taken her sketchbook outside andsat among the pines at dusk. She intended to try to capture what
happened when the bright colors disappeared and the soft browns
and grays took over the landscape. But something quite different
emerged from her pencil. A portrait of odd-looking trees, rolling
hills and desert presented itself, emitting a sense of desolation,sadness, and devastation. Nawal had no idea what or where thiswas. How could she draw something she did not know?
The sound of a voice startled her. She jumped up and knocked
her seat backward. Ms. Taylor apologized, then repeated herself.
"That must be Palestine." .
Palestine? None of the history or geography books mentioned
Palestine and this had caused Nawal great confusion. After all, as
a Palestinian she must have corne from Palestine. She had beenquite young when she asked her parents. Their faces took on looksof desolation, sadness and devastation. Her father said "Somethings are better off forgotten," and she never asked again. Now
Ms. Taylor seemed to think she had drawn Palestine.
"I've heard it's a very beautiful land," Ms. Taylor went on. "It'sa complete and utter tragedy that the world has stood by and done
nothing to help your people. I think you' ve captured some of thepain in this drawing."

29

What on earth was Ms. Taylor talking about? It scared Nawal
at the same time as she desperately wanted to hear more. She also
had to fight back tears.
The rest of the students bounced into the room. Flushed andexcited, they began telling Ms. Taylor that a mouse had run
through the dining room. Jennifer and Colleen had jumped on
their chairs and screamed for absolutely the longest time, eventhough the mouse had scurried to the other side of the room. Ms.
Taylor said sharply she hoped Jennifer and Colleen would choose
to break out of gender roles in order to become better artists. Whatare gender roles, N awal wondered.
Then Ms . Taylor began the lesson. As always, she had thestudents' full attention.
"This morning I talked about how perspective gives depth toyour art, and how it locates the viewer in a particular place. Now
I want to talk about another kind of perspective. It has to do withthe way you perceive what is around you. Every artist must
constantly ask: How do I see the world? Through what eyes?"
I see the world through eyes the color of shit, Nawal thought
to herself. She could not help but look at Jennifer. A stab of desire
ran through her so fiercely it hurt. What would it be like to see theworld through those eyes?
"1 did not think much about this until 10 years ago when I spenta summer teaching in Heart's Delight, Newfoundland. I grew up
in St. John's and wanted to teach children in my home province."
That explained the occasional lilt in Ms. Taylor's voice.
''These children came from the families of fishermen, and had a
hard life in many ways. At first I did not understand why they didn't
draw flowers and trees as I encouraged them to. Instead, they drew
angry seas, leaky boats, dead birds. Then I realized they saw the world
differently than I did, and that they had many things to teach me."
As usual that evening, Nawal casually walked by the phonebooth in hopes of hearing Ms. Taylor talking to the mysterious
Nancy. Instead, she saw Ms. Taylor walking down a trail, immersed in a letter. She held a large envelope in one hand and tried
to turn pages with the other. Something fell out of the envelope,and Ms. Taylor did not notice.
Nawal ran after her and picked up the pamphlet. She took astep toward Ms. Taylor and opened her mouth to call out, then30

looked down and saw the word Palestine in big letters. She
stopped dead in her tracks, closed her mouth, and looked fromMs.
Taylor to the pamphlet several times. Was stealing always wrong?
Certainly she shouldn't read someone else's mail. But. Nawal
stuffed the pamphlet in her jeans pocket and ran to her particularspot in the woods. She sat there, touching the pamphlet with her
fingers, the churning in her stomach becoming stronger with each
moment. Nawal felt like she might throw up. She opened thepamphlet and looked at it. Scribbled across the top were the words:"Sweetie, I thought you'd want to see this once you're back. Mis~
you. N." Once again Nawal felt intense curiosity about Nancy's
relationship to Ms. Taylor but it quickly subsided as she began
reading the pamphlet.
The Palestinian Cultural Society formed in 1980 to ensure thatthe art, music and literature of the Palestinian people survivethese harsh years of exile. Our group is made up of PalestinianCanadians whose families were forced to leave our beloved
land in 1948 when the State of Israel formed . Since then we
have watched with sadness and anger as Israeli borders
expand, and more and more of our people become exiles andrefugees.
We are determined that during these trying decades, ourculture
will not be left to perish . While all of us are working toward there-establishment of a sovereign Palestinian nation, we are also
bent on preserving Palestinian culture and encouraging newPalestinian artists.
Our next event is an upcoming exhibit of Palestinian embroidery, which will take place ...

N awal could not read anymore because her vision had become
blurry. It took her a moment to identify the tears streaming down
her cheeks and the sad strange sound of her own sobs. She turned
her face to the pine needle-covered earth and wept. She cried evenharder upon realizing she did not understand all the reasons forher tears.
One rainy day Nawal and Dwayne worked in the studio
together. After an hour of comfortable silence, Dwayne asked what
Nawal thought of his tree. Nawal examined it and said she liked it.
"But there's something missing, and I can't figure it out. Can
you?"
31

Dwayne wanted her opinion. How strange. Nawal's voice
shook a little as she said "It's flat, it doesn't move."
Dwayne pondered the tree. "You're right. What do you think
I should do?"N awal suggested angling the leaves a certain way and blurringa few lines to indicate the presence of a wind. They went back totheir work. A half hour later, Dwayne asked her to look again.
Nawal noticed with pleasure he had taken her suggestion andimproved his drawing.
Dwayne began talking about Ms. Taylor. "She's great," heenthused. "I like the way she helps us see what's good and badabout our own pictures. I don't always want to rely on somebody
else to tell me whether it's any good.""Yes, I like that," agreed Nawal. "Sometimes I wish I could
have her for a whole year."
Everyone knew about Wednesday's visit from the well-known
artist, Ms. Fukashima. In actual fact, she was not well-known to thestudents but they had caught Ms. Taylor's enthusiasm and could
not wait for the visit. Only a few had heard Ms. Taylor muttering
under her breath about the appalling nature of Canadian highschool art programs that failed to teach students about important
contemporary artists.
Ms. Fukashima arrived early that morning, and spent her firsthour talking with the teachers. The students examined the 13 long,narrow pieces hastily hung in the art room.
The paintings pulled Nawal into a swirling ocean. Horrible,
beautiful, delicate, stark and overwhelmingly full, all at once.
Emaciated people sharing desperately small quantities of food.
Girls being led to back rooms by soldiers. Fathers reading tenderly
to small children in crowded, claustrophobic bottoms of leakyboats. People singing in the face of guns. Babies showing blood andbone where skin should have been. Chanting crowds surging
toward a building. Everyone had brown eyes.
Nawal did not know everyone had sat down. Ms. Taylor gently
nudged her toward the empty seat. Many students asked questions,but N awal heard nothing until Ms. Fukashima's words, spoken in the
careful, precise way of Nawal's parents, pierced her consciousness.
"I do perceive the world differently than you." She looked at
Dwayne as she said this; had he asked a question? Nawallooked32

at Ms. Fukashima and for a brief moment it seemed Cousin Cecilia
stood beside her. Nawal blinked and Cousin Cecilia vanished. "To
use an example of great oversimplification, you see the world withblue eyes and I see the world with brown eyes. That means I
perceive differently, no matter how much I may wish to see the way
someone with blue eyes does."
How could words hit you like a sledgehammer? N awal did not
ask to be excused, she simply left and made it to the bathroom justin time to throw up violently. She retched for a long time, feelingas if a pair of giant hands were wringing her out the same way Hani
would wring out the dishrag. Sitting on the floor next to the toilet,
curled up in a shivering wretched ball, Nawal heard Ms.
Fukashima's voice over and over. "You see the world with blueeyes and I see the world with brown eyes.".
Nawal felt raw and shaky, but lighter. It took her a long time torealize her leg muscles had cramped, her clothes smelled of vomit,
and sweat covered every part of her bod y. She made her way to theshowers. Afterwards, in clean clothes, Nawal took her sketchpad
and walked to the spot in the woods where those ancient pines
surrounded her completely.
Dusk. There was less light and some things became invisible,
but others became visible. The softness of the earth was not thisapparent in the early hours . In some ways, the day's bright colors
could not match the rich, glowing browns, golds, and grays of thedusk. Nawal wondered how she could not have noticed this beauty
before.
Opening her sketchpad, she thought about images. Where didthey come from? Why did some take a long time to emerge?
Sometimes a fuzzy outline would appear and gradually fill itself
in, maybe in a day, maybe in three months. The image now in her
mind's eye had just emerged, spontaneously and completely. Now
she had to hold that vision and transfer it to paper without
forsaking any of its life.
Nawal finished the drawing just as dusk ended and night
began to fall. She sat among the pines feeling the night descend andunfold. It enveloped her in its black beauty.
The next morning at breakfast, Colleen and Jennifer chatted
while Nawal toyed with her food. Jennifer thought Ms. Taylor had
overrated Ms. Fukashima.
33

"She isn't that great," she said between bites of granola. "Imean, her technique is very good, but it's all so depressing. Artists
are supposed to cheer you up. And what did she mean when she
said all that weird stuff to Dwayne about eyes? He said it's
insightful but I think it's weird.""You would," muttered Nawal so quietly no one heard.
Colleen was uninterested in art reviews. She rightfully feared
the wrath of Ms. Taylor because once again she had not completed
her assignment.
'What am I going to do?" she asked plaintively.
'Well, don't panic," said Jennifer. "Remember, 'The darkest
hour is before the dawn.' ""That's what you think," muttered Nawal, a shade louder.
'What did you say, Willie?"
Scared, angry and resolute, N awal spoke clearly. "I said 'That's
what you think' But there's another way to look at it. Maybe thelightest hour is before the dusk And my name isn't Willie, it's
Nawal."
Nawalleft Jennifer and Colleen gaping.
Nawal showed the drawing to Ms. Taylor. She had used abrown crayon and nothing else. Shading created edges and contours and features of the scene set in the dusk Nawal had come tolove. Aman and woman appeared on the desolate, sad, devastatedland. They sat, unmoving, wearing scarves like the one in her
mother's closet. Their large brown eyes told stories some people
refused to hear. Nawal had never titled any of her work But inclear, simple lettering at the bottom of this drawing she had written"The lightest hour is before the dusk"

34

Lorrie Sprecher

war meditation
Last night on ABC, Peter Jennings talked about my menstrual cycle
to millions of americans when he announced that after six weeks,
the war in the persian gulf was supposedly over. Six weeks, I
thought, that can't be right. Because I remember it so clearly.
The night the war started and we saw those first greenish
videos of our missiles carpet-bombing baghdad, I was crawlingout of my skin with PMS. I remember, because I've charted thewhole war using that as a reference point. Men always say thatwomen shouldn't be in charge of anything, shouldn't be leaders ofcountries, because the day before our periods start we'll push abutton and blow up the world as though some internal sea of bloodis lapping up to our eyeballs and obscuring our vision of real life.
And tampons stand in for missiles and our bodies become silos. Oh
sure.
So I was killingly premenstrual, hating all countries, hating
iraq and the united states because of what they do to women, but
I wasn't dropping any bombs.
And then Peter Jennings in his immaculate suit said, let's see,it has been exactly forty-two days and three hours since the war
began. And I thought, God, forty-two days? I was really late. I felt
vulnerable, like he'd just announced some personal failing of mineto all of america. Forty-two days. Why not say twenty-eight days,or thirty days? And then I heard america's questions. Well didn't
you think you might be pregnant? Don't you use birth control? Are
you sexually active? And I heard my answer on the six o'clocknews. I am a lesbian. I don't sleep with men. I'm not pregnant.
You bastards.
I didn't ask the war to be fought on my cycle.
I didn't ask the president, who has never shed one public tearabout the rape of real women living in america - one in every
three of us - to talk on TV about the metaphorical rape of a place.
When I turn on my TV I want to hear the real statistics: how

35many women were raped today, or murdered by their husbands?
How many dowry deaths, batterings and female circumcisions
were there today?
I want a global sisterhood.
I want all the weapons.
Yeah, you could say I have PMS.
Sure. You could say that.

Patriots Maze59" x 59", 1991. Silkscreened fabric, machine sewn, hand quilted.

Ellen Oppenheimer
36

Elana Dykewomon

Oakland: February 1991, 1 AM
Put me in mind of my harbor,the easy romance of my luck.
The taste is bitter, the moon is frayed.
They say I know what I'm doing
but I whistle to myself:
the jig is up.
I've lived through enough wars in comfort
to know that living comfortably through wars means
nothing
is only circumstance.
Tonight there's an Iraqi dyke who
believes in herself who takes what she's given
and makes do,
who loves womyn and her own power
to accomplish, to hide, to get by, to create,
to make a life she thinks her mother can't imagineand that lesbian might be blown to bits
before I get to the end of thispage
At the start of this war Evelyn called me up
raved and grieved
all the wars she's seen at seventy-nine, she can describe war after war
her family in Israel her grandchildren in danger
her heart in danger ofremembering the twentieth century
miserable egos lousy mistakesthat rage across our planet- now I don't think the salk vaccine was worth it
the telephone, the automobile.

37

So this is it: I live through wars.
I live in a country that kills all over the globe and neverhas a bomb dropped within its shores and I get to tell
the girls who come after
how a womon's life can be full of personal happiness,rich with work and friendship while
human beings are vaporized with her taxes
and she, she's up again at lam
watching another war
on television

Winged Merp
pen & inks

Lotza Luck
38

Elizabeth ClareAt Seneca Anny Depot
1.

I dip my hands
into ashes, rub
them in until
my skin turns gray,not like this skyhours before rain
but another sky when
I dream of nuclear war.
Gray hands, hands who
shake with cerebral palsy,
mistaken for retardation,
epilepsy, MS, hands whocall to men on
the other side ofcyclone fences, hands wholove women strongly before
we cross those fences.
2.
Fences, weaving cyclone
fences with red, green
purple yarn, women weaving
our lives into
the chain-link boundaries.
Shadows of the wire,
diamond shape, fallingon your body, facepainted with grief,long black lines againstclown white.

39

3.
I want to climbthat fence, follow
the airstrip down
to where the missiles
lie stacked like firewood
surrounded by barb wireand sit, place
my gray hands palm downon the asphalt andwait with my whole life.
But instead
I stand on
the other side
and watch those gray hands
shake the fence until
the locks rattle.

40

Deborah Schwartz

After the Movies of Treblinka

I am eightwatching the snow drop.
Like soft bombs it hits
explodes and joins the fragile white earth.
In the middle of our street is an island of snowa parkway; two skinny trees bow heads.
Later, men with black umbrellas walk their dogs.
I know when the snow melts on the parkway
there will be a sheet of gold glass.
I will have to break that glass with a rockor my booted foot.
Underneath the glass will be green healthy mossthen a warm layer of dirt rich with calcium and worms.
In the spring I will lie down in the earthand listen to the words, the wish wish
like wind through a tunnel.
I will listen to the earth that has soaked up the bones,
the teeth, the words that like my mamma's words tell me:"Don't worry, ga shlofen, ga shlofen, sleep."41

Lorrie Sprecher

big-sister God hates me

In session my therapist was going on at me again about trust, and1 thought, oh fuck you, what do you know about it? She said, "1want all the parts of you to feel safe to come to therapy, to know it's
okay to talk to me."God, 1thought, why are you doing this to me? It means nothing
to you, don't torture me by pretending you care when you don't.
Because 1 knew so clearly that she didn't, 1 could see it in her eyes,
she wasn't my friend, this was her job. Finally I said, 'Why should
1 talk to you, what's in it for me?" which 1could tell, as it came out of
my mouth, was a pretty stupid thing to say to a fucking therapist.
"Health," she said.
Oh bullshit, I thought, 1 don't believe that any more than you
do. 1 was starting to feel really fucked with and angry about that.
She said, "Do you think I can speak to the part of you that
remembers ?'"Sure," I said, ''I'll just get the fuck out of the way. Oh, sorry,
I can't seem to leave my body today, I guess you're stuck with justme sitting here in this chair again." You can't talk to my "otherparts," I thought sarcastically, the only person you can talk to inthis room is me, just me, and I know tha t isn't good enough. Unless
you want to fucking dissociate too, and then you can talk to
yourself. But you're too good for that, aren't you?
"Very funny," she said.
Listen big-sister God, I thought, it isn't funny at all.
'What about you?" I asked. "Have you ever been in therapy?
Do you know how this feels?"
She smiled. "1 hear a lot of fantasy going on."What the fuck did she mean by that? This is what psychobabble is, I thought, this is what psycho-babble feels like. I should
just fuck myself up now and forget it. "I'm sorry," I said, "1 don't
want to piss you off, but everything I say is always wrong so maybe
I should just shut up.""Keep going."
What did I just say? I thought. "1 was only asking if you'd everbeen in therapy because I was interested in knowing if you have42any idea how invasive this feels. Even though I'm paying you to do
it to me."''What you're really asking is for me to tell you what to do.""No, fuck it, what I was really asking is have you ever been intherapy, that's what I was asking. Aren't you listening?""It sounds like you want to be the therapist.""Sitting there would be much better than where I'm sitting," I
said. "This is really humiliating."''Why do you feel humiliated?""Oh come on," I said. "Therapy's a totally one-sided thing. I needyou, you don't need me. It's completely humiliating. And now you' reasking me to trust you. I already trust you. But it's not enough, I haveto trust you more, and everything in me says that's a bad idea."''What in our relationship makes you think trusting me is a bad
idea?"
Relationship? I thought. Our relationship? ''No way," I said,"I'm not going to get into that." It's a trap, it's a trap, it's a fucking
trap, and I'm going to get thrown out of here. But if she wants tothrow me out, she can do it all by herself, I thought, I don't have tohold the fucking door open.
''We're stuck on this issue of trust and boundaries. You wantme to make it okay for you to trust me and I can't, it's your choice.
What can I do that would make it safe for you? There's nothing."
Oh fuck you, I thought, if you really wanted to, you could atleast tell me you like me. I said, "You keep telling me to trust you
and I think, what's it to you? It's nothing to you. You don't give ashit about me.""You keep testing me," she said, "and I'm supposed to makeit okay for you to talk to me. You feel like you can't until you know
about me as a person, but this is therapy. These are the boundariesof the therapeutic relationship and you don't get any more."
What I heard was, I don't like you, I'll never like you, how
could I like someone like you? My self-esteem was down to zero
anyway, but now I was hearing it in stereo, from myself and fromthis person who knew so much about me she ought to know. I said,"Just fuck telling me I can trust you." Then I thought, oh shit, andI waited for her to say it.
"Our time is up," she said, "see you Wednesday." We walked
downstairs to the parking lot. "Hooray," she smiled, "I'm off theclock. Have a good rest of the day."43

Oh well that just did it, I thought-my fucking head would blow
off. Have a good fucking day? What the fuck did she mean by that?
I'd been in therapy with her all these months and hadn't had a goodanything yet. What the fuck did she think, that I could switch it on
and off, that when I left therapy I felt free like she did instead offeeling like shit? Did she think it was so easy, easy like it was for her
to leave and have a nice day? If it was so easy, I wouldn't be infucking therapy. And what I heard was her saying, have a good restof your life, sucker. She didn't have to seem so eager to get awayfrom me. I know it's no picnic spending even fifty minutes in aroom with me, believe me, because I spend all my time stuck insidemyself, but the extreme happiness of the back of her head zooming
away in her car really hurt my feelings. I started to cry. Don't tellme to have a nice day, I thought, I'm from southern California.
People used to tell me that all the time. It doesn't work.
I decided to slash one wrist to see how I liked it. I needed
something rew in my life and figured I could either slash my wrist
or get a puppy. The wrist idea was better, I wouldn't do it verticallybut horizontally, and one of the smaller veins, so that if I didn't likeit, I could change my mind. Just one wrist. It would be okay. Thenmaybe my internal voices would see how desperate I was and rally
together to tell me what to do. They didn't say, your time is up.
They would save me, they would stop it, we would work together,
I wouldn't need that lousy shrink anymore.
But some friends from school called and wanted me to have adrink with them. They were going to be near where I lived, which
was unusual because no one goes to Laurel for God's sake, and I
couldn't get out of it without admitting I was totally anti-social andcrazy. So I was having a beer, they were talking about theirdissertations, I felt so distant from everything their voices kept
fading out, and I thought, let' s get on with it, I have to go home andslash my wrist. But looking forward to it cheered me up,like I had
the power to change something. I can do one wrist and just try it,
I told myself again, it might be nice. It might make me happy.
When I got home itwas late, but I went upstairs and put alcoholon the razor blade to avoid infection. I felt hypocritical doing it,like
if I were really serious about slitting my wrists I wouldn't beconcerned about infection, but it seemed safest to cover all thepossibilities. If I didn't like it, I could bandage it up and no one
would know. But I had to be careful to cut it just right so I wouldn't
44get caught. I imagined having to go to the emergency room
because I needed stitches or a tetanus shot and having everyone
look at me accusingly like I was some sort of psycho-case. They'dwant to make me see a shrink, then 1'd have to tell them I alreadyhad one, and it would get really embarrassing. They'd probably
want to call her, and I'd have to give them her name and number
just to get out of the psycho-ward, where I wouldn't want to be.
Not that I think I don't belong in one, I just don't want to be in one.
I had just made a small and so far sa tis factory incision when thephone rang. I didn't know if! should answer it but thought, oh hell,maybe it's the cosmos calling up to say, don't do it. I wra pped toilet
paper over my wrist and went to the phone. It wasn't anything
more cosmic than a friend of mine, saying, "There's a midnightshowing of Thelma and Louise out near your house and I thought wecould psyche ourselves up for one more day of struggle against
male domination on this planet.""I don't know about tonight," I said, watching blood seepthrough the toilet paper and kind of dabbing at it. "I'm having akind of allergic reaction to thera py." I knew she was in therapy too
and sometimes got weirded out over her own shrink.
"Sure," she said, "I understand. What's going on?""Nothing, really, I'm just tired." I thought I had made thetiniest of incisions but my stupid blood kept coming out and I
needed to get off the phone.
"You don't sound okay. You're not going to crack up on me, areyou?""Don't worry," I said. "Anyway, if I really crack up, there's
always big-sister God."'Who?""Shrink-city," I said.
"That's a great image," she said, "very down-on-your-knees.
May I use it?"
"Please help yourself, just don't credit it back to me."Unfortunately all I had were stupid Minnie Mouse band-aids
that didn't stick very well. I thought, Minnie Mouse is no sister. I'dbought them for the container, which had a brown and green
hologram on the side showing two hands pulling open a band-aid,
and an assurance on the back that Minnie Mouse was my bestfriend, providing comfort when I was hurt. Oh sure, just like myshrink. I put a band-aid carefully on my wrist, then crossed another45

one over it. God, I thought, when the blood soaked through and I
folded toilet paper under a fresh band-aid, this is so fucking
obvious, what am I going to do about therapy tomorrow?
The next evening I put on a shirt with long sleeves andbuttoned the cuffs even though it was almost a hundred degrees.
When I drove to therapy I noticed they had changed the messageson 1-95 and the Capital Beltway again. There are these stupid blue
signs that stretch from Maryland to Virginia with little traffic
safety poems on them. I started writing them down so I would
remember why I preferred living in Maryland instead of California.
"Defensive driving means arriving," "Stay alive, drive 55,"
"Room inside share a ride." California is just as stupid a state but
in a more pretentious way. If we'd had signs on the freeway where
I used to live they'd probably say things like, "Relax and transcend,
your destination's just around the bend." Or, "Enjoy the ride, haveyour chakras aligned." Okay, maybe it wasn't that bad, maybe I'm
bitter because it's where I was raised. Or erased. Whichever. Lastmonth on the Beltway, all the way from my apartment to therapy,
I could read, "Ad vise to heed don't speed," until three weeks into
it someone figured it out and changed it to "advice."
Today the signs choking off our nation's capital read,"Disabeled
car stay where you are." No wonder we have to go all the way
across the world to bomb things, I thought, we don't know how tospell in our own language. I don't know why that analogy madesense to me. Maybe that we didn't know what to do with what wehad, we couldn't car pool so how could we share the world? Maybe
that we hadn't bothered learning how to communicate with anyone.
But that was the job I wanted, poet laureate of the Capital
Beltway. "If you're driving anti-choice today, I'll run you off theold Beltway." Because those anti-abortion bumper stickers arehazardous in traffic. It's dangerous to be flipping off those people
while you're changing lanes.
I was early for my session and while I waited, I tried to thinkof what I'd change those signs to if I could.
You've just cut off a lesbian, better think again.
You've just cut off a lesbian, prepare to meet your end.
You've just cut off a lesbian, now you know why we hate men.
You've just cut off a lesbian, I'll get you but you won't know when.
You've just cut off a lesbian who isn't into Zen.
You've cut off a lesbian who cuts herself.
46

Lierre Keith

What You Say
You do not say you were battered, only that she hit you.
In the face, that's right, after 2 hours of her terrible screaming
and your worse patience, repeating the same words over and over,it has no effect, she keeps screaming, until finally she hits you.
You keep getting smaller but no one sees. You keep trying totell but they won't hear until the quiet inside is a kind of winter. She
gets hysterical, A concurs. She's hypersensitive, B agrees. She's
cruel, C says, after a pause.
I'm trying to destroy you, she tells you herself. I don't knowwhy.
Two years.
This is how the story gets told, because you have the samefriends except they were her friends first. A hard relationship, they
all agree. It takes two to fight. You're defensive, they agree, heads
nodding, this is a political critique you understand, to make you abetter revolutionary of course, you are defensive, and she keeps
screaming, calling you names, round and round hours on end until
you are crying and she hates you worse, such contempt, your novelis wrong and your music is essentially boring and you aren't
reading the right books for the right reasons and you aren't doing
theoretical work - though you're good at restating other people's
ideas - but there's nothing original in it and your politicaljudgements lack maturity (though it turned out the FBI wasn't
after us for spray painting after all) and you're defensive, theyagree, heads nodding at the correct revolutionary angle.
Did no one see or did everyone? A lived with her. B was her
best friend.
Victim. You valorize your victimization, she said. To me. But
watch her with her other friends, more compassion than you could
imagine, a fucking fountain of sisterly love.
(Are you sneering now, as you read? Do you snort in disgust?
Curl your lip in contempt? I don't give a shit, she hurt me.)Don't tell anyone, she made me promise. We didn' t mention it

47

again until finally I did and it was only one incident, A decides,
though not to your face, no, no one speaks to you. B agrees. It could
have been any of us, C responds, but not to you. It only happened
once, D points out, when you push and keep pushing.
("You and your brother don't get along.""Incest, mom, the word is incest.")She has been held accountable, E writes, at your provocation.
And it's the horrors of patriarchy, and in the end she's my friend
and she has been held accountable ...
So why don't you shut up.
Because I'm the one she hit and she has not been held accountable. She has not. To me. She has not. Two years. Accountable. Me.
Who else are you going to tell? she wanted to know. Not how
deep she had hurt me, but who I was going to tell.
Because I'm a writer, she said, I'm going to publish. Important
Theoretical Work. Lesbianism As a Revolutionary Subjectivity. I
don't deserve to be trashed .
The rest say nothing, not to me. No one wants to know. The
water seals up so quick except I'm the stone. My great revolutionary friends. My fucking radical feminist comrades who organize
speak-outs and work in the battered women's movement.
Sisters, remember love, no matter how much you want it, thekind made to hurt and I'm not saying I was battered, only that she
hit me.

48

Renee Hahn

King Victoria''Fuck the Casbah," we sang raucously. Club E's was sure packed
tonight. Can't believe this place actually played the Clash - ofcourse we requested it several times. The d .j.s must be doing someheavy kind of drugs tonight; they rarely acquiesce to playing
something other than disco shit. The d.j.s always do coke behindthe neon sign, though, I know that. At any rate, we're contented
this Friday night. Everybody in the Third World Gang is here Corey, Del, Justin, Louie, Toyboy, and a few others. The Third
World Gang is what we're called by the white people who run thisbar, out of their ignorance. See, we dress sort of wild compared tomost of the working class folks in this place. They're very straightlooking, and we have fun hairstyles and wear big black boots. But
not everyone in the Gang is a person of color, which was why wescoffed at how ignorant they were to call us that. They called us
Third World not knowing what it meant, just thinking it meantdifferent from them. Like, they said we seem like we were fromouter space. And so we adopted the name.
We got a big round table and we're drinking gallons of beer.
Little Kings on tap, two bucks a pitcher; what a bargain. I'm feelingon the edge, though, 'cause I saw Vicki - she's King - just lastnight and she said she might come downtown, here, tonight.
Vicki's my king. I know kings are supposed to be men, but I figure
she can't be a queen, 'cause queens are gay guys in drag, and that
she's not. So since Vicki rules, I call her King. King Victoria.
Last night, it was Thursday, I ran into her at the mall where she
works. I hate malls, 'cause I never have money and people stare atme for my clothes - all black and vintage, much different from theaverage blue collar worker's - and my hair which sticks straight
up in a long flattop. But I knew Vicki would be there. So I breezed
through, pretending to browse. Then I feigned surprise to see her.
She appeared upset about something, so I asked if I could buy her
a beer after work.
Vicki was trying to decide whether to move to Cincinnati ornot. Her parents didn't like the idea. But hell, like I told her, she's
49

twenty-six and lived on her own before, out in L.A. yet; she canmove to Cincinnati, Ohio, if that's what she wants. It's what she
wants, she told me.
We drank beer and she told me stuff about her family; heavythings. After a few hours we trudged out the door into an ice storm
and said goodbye. I'm in love with her, no doubt. Could barely
believe I was sitting alone with her, talking to her. Blew my mind
wide open. She's handsome and slick - chiseled features in an
olive-skinned face. Wears an old thick leather jacket, too.
So now I'm watching the door this Friday night, thinking about
Vicki's hands, looking for her to walk in. Like she really will.
And who walks in but my first lover, Krissy, without her husband. No way, haven't seen her in months. We say hello; she tells me
I'm looking good and buys me a drink. Krissy darts around the bar,talking to people, flirting with men. At a gay bar, yet. Makes me ill to
see her submitting to men, blatantly denying her love for women. I'mover her anyway, I tell myself; I met a real Lesbian - Vicki - and I
won't be getting tangled up with women attached to the sides of men
like shadows. It's the damnest tragedy; Krissy's a gymnast, fixes
cars, and cute as hell. Lost to men, I sadly think, she's lost.
So many people at the Club tonight. I walk around and cruise,
attempting to find excitement. My friends begin to bore me- I cannever sit in one place for very long anyway. It's winter, and I'mwearing my pale orange '50' s pants and a black and grey argyle
sweater. With my Hanover boots; they look like combat boots but
they're easier to dance in. These boots are original work boots thatpeople used to wear in the factories, circa the '40's, so my dad told
me and he would know. He's worked in factories forever. I bought
all this wear from Goodwill in Mazletin; can usually find good
stuff there. Since it's the end of the week, I'm sporting my favorite
togs. And cruising around, like I started to say.
And who walks through the door next but the King herself,
Vicki. I suddenly have the sensation of a small bird walking inside
my stomach as she hugs me and thanks me for helping her out lastnight. What do you mean, I ask, quite honored. And Vicki says that
I helped her decide, she's leaving tomorrow for Cincinnati. Oh, I
try to answer with glee for her, but really I'm devastated. Now she
won't be around here. She tells me she's got a present for me, andasks, Trista, you have a straight edge? A straight edge, like a razor,

50

I don't have a razor, I reply, confused. No, Vicki laughs, like adriver's license or i.d. card, something like that. Let me buy you abeer, Trista, Little Kings okay?
But of course, I say, and then we talk awhile. I tell her Krissy's
here. They were in high school together ten years ago. Weird to me,
a decade they've both been out of high school, and I only got out
a few years ago. I bring Krissy over to Vicki and they slap hands
and rap that it's good to see each other and stuff. I admire Vicki
from my chair.
Then Vicki sits back down and asks me if! ever did coke before,
and I say, no, never. I never did it 'cause it scared me and I think I'd
flip out, I meekly explain. She says she wants to share some withme' cause I helped her out last night. And I think, why don't we rollaround and rub each other sweating instead, why don't we just fuck,
I'd like that better, but I don't bring those thoughts outside myhead.
We go out to her car and she chops the coke up fine like sandand I do a little but, frightened, I mainly fake it. Vicki tells me she'll
be there for me if I freak out, and that the coke will just make me
feel awake. Which it does.
Vicki and I slamdance for a bit, talk to some people and eachother, and then say good-bye. She leaves.
I feel empty, despairing, wound up; can't believe she left. I
don't want to talk to my friends, they just don't compare andbesides, they wouldn't understand this huge loss. The Gang invites me to afterhours adventure but I can't tolerate doing anything, being anywhere, being with anyone' cept Vicki and now
she's gone. I want to die, my head hurts and my mind is racing.
I go to my apartment alone, put on music, sit in my living roomin a tunnel of anguish. She's gone. I have only a few memories now,and her image, now in fragments, imprinted on my brain. Fucked
up and hurting, I bang my head against the wall to stop the pain.
I can only cry a little. King Victoria is gone. Leaving tomorrow. No
more Friday night slamdancing with her. She's gone away and I
feel dead like a void, and restless, agitated as hell.
I finally fall asleep - I don't know how. It becomes lightoutside and I feel grey enough, too sore to move. My body numb,I leave my clothes on and sleep.

51

Sharon Lim-Hing

I Was Looking for You, I Was Looking GoodI checked in the rear view. My hair - perfect. Just the right strands
out of place. My sides had been buzzed two days ago. The hairs
were still sticking up. Looking prickly but soft to the touch, likehuman velvet. On top I had some gel shit in, and the whole thing
held like a superglue Empire State Building.
I felt great. A little excited like I wanted something to happen
but scared nothing would happen.
I walked in. The place was a firetrap . Underground. No windows. Only one exit as far as I could see. I set myself up close to thedoor. There were lots of white college babydykes. A serious black
butch with black leather half-gloves to match her outfit was
accompanied by her blonde girlfriend sporting a gold lame miniskirt. Some shaved heads. A couple of polo shirts doing a sloppy
tango. Hanging casually from hands that didn't know what else to
do with themselves, cigarettes sent up grey strands into the general haze that hung in the club and was sucked up by everyone's
lungs. A free passive nicotine fix.
Sexual tension was thick like soft butter, oozing over every object
in the room, lubricating every utterance, glazing over every eye andlayering every gesture. Was it just me, or was it the full moon
outside that was pulling the blood of the women in the subterranean bar, sending us into a collective heat? Maybe it was just me.
I was sucking on a Sam Adams, smiling at the rush for thedance floor because the DJ had just placed that song that everyone
wants to dance to. I felt the pull myself. I looked over my shoulder.
That's when I sa w N and ana. Tha t' s when I fell in love with her.
In that moment with strobes illuminating convulsive tobacco
clouds, bass line inspiring pumping legs, dykes grabbing up thelast of the rapidly disappearing dance floor, I turned aroundsmiling and she was smiling at me and I knew and something likea clear bell rang and resounded in my body.
Did it matter what we said? What pretext, what line? Nope, it
dint matter one specka lint. A script that was already written was52being unfurled before me and all I had to do was take a step. So I
asked her if she wanted to dance.
Everyone was at the demons tra tion. There was a lot of community building going on, that is dishing, and not a small portion of
cruising. What cartoonist said that demonstrations are the Left's
cocktail parties?
My buddy Romi was there. I lost sight of her but heard herwheezing, old accordian laugh, hissing through her teeth like aradiator that threatens to spew hot water. Most of the time her
raspy voice delivered clipped statements or punched out cynicalone-liners, then her mouth would droop doomlike down. As if
sadness was her dominating emotion and that laughter just a
faded dream interrupting her real life. Since she quit her dead-end
job and got together with Lynne, more of that wheeze had beensqueezing out of her lately, and even sounded happy.
Romi was going to massage school, and yes, her foot massages
were making my feet feel better by hops, leaps and bounds. I don't
know about massage on other parts of the body. We're just goodfriends, after all. I guess Lynne is getting all the good stuff ... Swiss,
deep muscle, hot oil. You know, that sort of stuff.
Someone walked by carrying a sign. "Celibate Lesbians Pining
for Peace." Huh! With a sign like that she won't be celibate for long.
"Is Our Lifestyle Worth Their Lives?" bobbed by, a scraggly
beard and predictable ponytail. If he was a woman, you know hewouldn't let so many split ends congregate on his head.
Mariko was chanting her hairless head off against Texaco. She
and Liz had broken up last year after five blessed years of cohabitation.1t was a big shock to everyone, who considered them an oldmarried couple, which they had been. Romi called them her rolemodel, but that didn't mean they were happy.
Mariko was so broken up about the break up that she dropped
out of law school. Says she's going back one of these days. Since
then she's shaved her head and stomps around in combat boots.
Very cool looking.
Anyway, Mariko took up with this boppy French chick Sophie.
They seem to be very much the hot item this season. They lookgood together too. Mariko on the butch side, small, and dark.
Sophie, definitely femme, even more petite, and blonde with dark
53

roots. They are constantly doing PDA. Kissing on the subway andin straight restaurants and bars. Sometimes it's embarrassing to bewith them, but they're oblivious. A couple of exhibitionists.
"I can't help it," Mariko whines, "I can't keep my hands off her.""The French love to touch," chirps Sophie in her cute French
accent, clinging just the right amount.
We glare at them in envy. Even today, while making signs
together, they would stop every so often to tongue each other withan occasional grind thrown. Kind of sickening, really. Especially if
you don't have someone to stick your tongue into.
By this time we had exchanged names. Nandana kept looking
over my shoulder. Finally I turned around. I saw a reflection of us
and a line of assorted liquor bottles guarding the mirror's edge.
Nandana's dark brown eyes were surrounded by a panoply of
long, black, curving lashes, that filtered the I'm-too-good-for-anyone
arrogance and let some of the do-you-really-like-me? vulnerability
seep through like honey from a comb. Her lips were a little chappedthat night, but boy did I want to suck on them. I wanted to smear
scented oil, my lips, and more softness over those chapped lips .
A pockmark dug into her right cheek; it looked more like a
dimple. This slight imperfection seemed to fix her beauty, topersonalize it, to make her more real. A nosering perforated her left
nostril, and this decoration balanced with the pockmark on theother side of her face. They created an asymetric equilibrium, between the accidental traces of a childhood illness and the deliberate,esthetic injury, between the natural marking and the imposed
metal. A vision of beauty.
"Do you ever feel like you've met someone and were lovers inanother life?" I asked.
"Yes.""But how is that possible? If you were married to someone insixth century B.C.E. Egypt, what are the chances of you bothshowing up in North America during the same half-century?
Someone might be late by a couple lives. Or be born on the wrong
continent.""Maybe we pursue it."
'Wow!" I sighed. "That is so profound." She beamed at mefrom behind her Rolling Rock.

54

Her hands were long and elegant. As she spoke, they moved
about in a peculiar, almost pedantic way, seemingly now in prayer,
now in a double karate chop. It's true, I only thought this later. At
the time I was busy tracing her fingers' future movements on mybody and inside it.
"Hey, this reminds me of that song that goes, 'I was looking
around your neighborhood, I was looking for you, I was looking
good.'"''Never heard it," she said. ''Who's it by?""It's from before your time. A group called Romeo Void ."One thing bothered me though. She said she was 23. I remember
the last time I tangled with a sweet young thing. They jerk you
around like a stir fry without even knowing what the hell they're
doing. Then they call you ageist. I still had bite marks on my handfrom robbing the cradle. They are especially vicious when teething.
The demonstration was the place to be on a deep blue andorange fall afternoon. "Bush Honey, Pull Out Now" looked likeshe might be more at horne in a shopping mall, but she was here.
I looked tough. Had on my black cowboy boots that I got in
Dallas. Worn in, creases cracked across the toes but not too deep,
they still gave off that dead animal perfume. Last night I had
shined them up with spit - three coats of Kiwi shoe polish andsaliva. That's the secret of a high gloss, the kind you can see panties
in. Had my jeans on. It's gotten so I don't wash them very often,
because they're the shade I want. True, I make more dog friends
that way, but I don't mind. Au contraire.
I had just enough of a cowlick to look casual. I make it in the
mirror, then take the can of hairspray I keep in the back of the closet
and render it rock rigid so it stays and I look slightly windblown.
And that cowlick has power, believe me. Could poke someone's
eye out with it.
Had on my leather jacket. There' s a story behind those piecesof cowhide. You know I knew I would get shit from my animal
rights household. So I just had to lie. I waited till I went to Philly tovisit my sister and her hubbie and my little niece who loved thehigh top sneakers I got her. When I came back I said I found thisgreat second-hand leather jacket at a flea market for only $40.

55

"One skin for three animals. It' s recycling," I said feebly. Since
it wasn't even broken in, I wouldn't believe me. But no one called
me on it, and one of my housemates even wanted to try it on under
the doleful eyes of a PETA poster on the fridge.
Leather. Makes me feel like James Dean back from the deadand with a vengeance. Feel like a good-looking version of Marlon
Brando. Like a thousand other images, strong, independent, unshakeable. Like when two mirrors face each other at a slight angle,
but instead of reproducing the same image make a thousand
variations, of which you are just one.
Funny what a piece of clothing will do for your mind. To yourmind .
So I was there, I was looking good, the hair was in place. But I
was really shitting concrete blocks. Ow.
N andana. Fell in love with her. In love. How can you fall in loveat first sight? I can't explain it because I don't know what love isanymore. Is love desire, a glance that makes you wet, a delicious
spasm in your womb, a shiver that runs up your torso and stops
thought? Is it respect for each other,like when you scream obscenities and throw dishes and then beg for forgiveness and promise,
promise you'll change? Is it habit that kills growth and traps two
people like a couple of Pompeian statues? Is it fear of losing her
because the last time you were celiba te for what seemed like a very
long time lesbians all around you were having one-night stands at
Michigan, two-week sad-eyed affaires, or three-year work-a-day
relationships? Is it romance, like when you exchange gifts you can't
afford and don't need yet are so sweet and show you're thinking ofeach other when you should really be getting on with all the otherparts of your life? Is it chance? - the same type of coincidence thatmakes your current girlfriend Toni' s ex-lover Fangfang the bestfriend of your former housemate Nadia who hangs with youracupuncturist Tanh's first true love Giang who also happens to bea former lover of a woman in your writing group, Selena, whosigns as if she were performing an abstract, seductive dance, which
you know she is. Or is it the kind of luck that puts you in the rightplace at the wrong time, when your eyes meet?
Take your pick or all of the above.

56

On the platform, a woman was addressing the crowd.
''Why does Bush want a war in the Middle East?
"First of all, he wants to project a show of masculinity. With hislong missiles and big bombs, he wants the American people to fall
for his macho, strong leader act. Second, wouldn't it be great forBush if a war did break out? I'm sure he believes a war is good foran ailing economy. And whether armed conflict breaks out in the
Gulf or the fhreat of military action drags on for years, it surewould provide a handy distraction for the recession that has been
going on for years, for all the domestic problems, legacy of the
Reagan era, that Bush wants to cover up. And let's not forget theroot of so many U.S. wars, officially declared or not, against people
on the other parts of the globe. Racism. Vietnam. Korea. EI Salvador. Grenada. All people with brown skin. Their lives don't mean
as much. They want U.s. help to get freedom and democracy,
because they're too stupid to do it themselves. This is the mentalitythat has financed wars. Now we are being asked to go to a war
against Iraquis. Since the oil crisis in the 70s, the press and othermedia have been building a stereotype of the crazy Arab who
spitefully refuses to sell the U.S. cheap oil. Refuse to be brainwashed into killing other human beings for a wasteful, polluting
American way of life!""She is hot," said Lynne. Romi cut her eyes catlike at her lover,then craned her neck to look at the speaker.
I thought about the coffee table books that hadn't been dusted
in weeks. How long ago had I washed my sheets? The black bean
soup I spilled on the kitchen table, did I clean it up? That wouldn't
make such a great impression. Well, her housemate was away onvacation, so we could moan as much as we wanted to, if it came tothat.
N andana offered to give me a back massage. If she hadn't usedthat line, I would've.
We lay shirtless on her futon.
"Hey, what about AIDS?" she asked suddenly.
"I don't think I have it. In fact, I'm pretty sure I don't.""Me neither. I got tested last year. That doesn't mean anything,though." A brief silence. "Okay," she said lightly, and we continued kissing.

57

Crazy thoughts flooded my brain. Don't leave me. I'll doanything you want me to. I love you. Those words just popped into
my head, and I tried to pour them from my mind into her mouth.
The electricity that moved from my mouth to between my legs was
so strong that I was sure it was moving through her too. When I
opened my eyes and we looked into each other's eyes, I felt it
jumping across space, as from the storm cloud to the mountainrock. Sometimes it got so hot our front teeth crashed, gnashed, andmeshed.
I sucked on her tongue. She moaned. I was amazed . I was
soaking. Where does this passion come from? I didn't even knowher.
More to the point, where does it go?
The next morning we had breakfast. I used her toothbrush. We
both wanted to see each other again, to work something out, tomake something. We said we'd call each other. I left.
That's when things got off track. She jumped off the pathwaythat wound through valleys and mountains in my mind. I had
mapped it all out. An intense but open relationship, see each otherabout twice a week, lots of sex, lots of poetry. But she started
pulling strange shit on me. Like, said she was writing me a letterthat never came. Pretended to be out when I called. Yup. Weird shit
like that.
There was a lull in the chanting as we marched up Boylston
Street. Our attention wandered .
"It just doesn't look like come. TI's too watery." Romi wasadamant. "Besides, it's coming out of her urethra, not her vagina.""Okay," countered Lynne, "so she really doesn't come on
camera. But I met a woman at the Clit Club who said she'd had twolovers who ejaculated - and really squirted her in the face too, shesaid.""God! Unknown mysteries to be delved into," sighed Mariko.
'Very occasionally, I do too," said Sophie in a small voice. Fourheads pivoted and stared. Mariko was fairly drooling at themouth, and at other places, I speculate.
"You must show me sometime," she cooed.
"Maisnon. Wearen'tgoingtodoitanymore. I decided that two
weeks ago."58

A stunned silence. Everyone was suddenly absorbed in reading signs and scanning the crowd. Then Mariko marched Sophie
off to the side where they could have a more private discussion in
the midst of thousands of demonstrators.
Two weeks! That meant that the happy, publicly unquenchable
couple hadn't been doing much more than what they'd been
forcing us to observe - and wouldn't be, according to Sophie's
unilateral embargo.
Why? Who knows? But why did she announce it to Mariko likethat? These French. I don't get it.
Come to think of it, about a week ago Mariko was obsessing
about not feeling ready to go back to law school.
'What do you care?" I felt frustrated by her complaints.
"You're too busy having all that great sex with Sophie anyway!"
She didn't say anything, jus t emitted a noncommittal "Hmmm,"
and looked away. I should've suspected something was amiss atthat point, terribly amiss. But the free sidewalk show that she andSophie were always putting on fouled up my radar like a ripe redherring.
I looked back at the shattered couple. Mariko's great lover
smile lay crumpled on the ground. She looked like I felt. Fear was
pickling my armpits. I felt like a piece of kim chee. If I saw
Nandana, what would we say? My mind whirred away,inventing
a dozen permutations. Most of these home movies ended with me
sweeping her off her feet and us making passionate love in a pileof leaves while hundreds of demonstrators cheered us on: "Makelove, not war!""Just forget about her," Romi advised, guessing who I waslooking for, who I wanted to avoid. "She's a vicious bitch on
wheels."'Who?" I pretended.
"Find someone else. Someone who deserves you. Look at all
the cute dykes here. And they're all politically aware, too. Either
that or they're looking for a date," she burst out laughing, heraccordian folding and unfolding like a trick deck of cards.
"Looking's what got me into trouble in the first place."
A dream of a perfect love. You don't just replace it. Cast off its
loving, absent hold from your sleep, its sticky, milky traces from59

your mind. Forget the last word you utter before dozing off, theimage that splashes you when you're buying groceries, the sugar
jumping in your muscles when you walk in the autumn sun, theway she's made you look at all Indian women differently. Looking
for traces of her when they are in your mind. The waking web of
dreams, an endless fence of fantasies traipsing across a prairie, acanyon, a desert, past the half-burnt wagon wheels, skeletons andcacti of real life.
I remember the waterfall sound of the sheets, the bottle of massage oil falling on the wood en floor, the smell of her that had teased
me like a scarf winding round her body, now released in the air.
I looked down. My boots were dusty. All of a sudden I felt silly
in my leather jacket. Was I so tough I didn't care about the mammalthat had been slaughtered, whose breathing, bleeding skin wastorn off muscle and fat to make me a make-believe costume?
But a chill wind was brushing my throat like a threatening
glance. I wasn't tough enough to take it off. I was afraid I'd catcha cold.
I took a deep breath of the wind that was slicing wool into
shreds. I was making it through another day of not calling her, notseeing her. Another day spent nursing my illusions and selected
memories. Waiting for her to call.
No. You don't just replace a dream of perfect love. Even if you
don't know where it comes from. Or where it goes.

60

Diane Fraser

Boylston Street

Where her hips curve into the verticaledges of buildings, the grey horizon issurprised: her hands take off like disturbed birdsof anger, flying up, opening, thencoming back to rest, curled and ready.
People walk around us avoiding thesudden, cocky flight, assessing breasts, eyes:
Are they a couple of dykes swaggering
their way up the street? They snicker, whisper,and one of us spits or dances, maybe
we laugh out loud and mimic their twittering.
Maybe I stop and kiss her neck, lightly.
What they don't see is my shivering skin:tiny birds rustling, aching for her hands.

61

Patt Kelly

WeightI don't understand why this woman likes crushed ice
better than the cubes, adds sugar to her tomatoes,
then offers me a sweetened bowl, or whistles so
self-consciously when she feels me looking at her
suntanned face and turquoise eyes.
And I can't fathom what she thinks is worth thestaying around for after the dinner is done, after
the trip to the Dairy Queen for strawberry sundaes,
after the love-making.
But the urgency for stays.
Blue jays bark in the bushes,
the sunset sifts down over the cityand this pale salmon-colored lightlingers so subtlely.
I get the monstrous urge to quit while I'm ahead
take the car and go varoom, varoom out of her roomaround the corner
fast
before I shatter fromthe fear that this won't last.
But this time, time fills me up
She fills me up
Adds weight.

62

Patricia Duncker

Betrayal
Helene held a dinner party to which she invited all her ex-lovers.
Her most recent ex-lovers. I was the only person there who hadn't
been to bed with her. Unfortunately, I was late. Thus, when I arrived,
there were three faces shimmering with jealousy, arranged around thetable. The post of Helene's lover, usually occupied by at least two
women who were never allowed to meet, theoretically out of respect
for both but in fact to avoid broken crockery and nasty scenes, wascurrently held on short-term renewable contract by a ravishingly
beautiful ballet dancer with supple encircling arms and a back like aconcrete curtain wall. She was hindering Helene's .cooking by administering torrents of kisses. The three other women watched, furious.
"Hello everyone," I cried, realising that the only lover I knew
was the ballet dancer.
I tried to create an amiable diversion. I was the only person not
close to an outburst of hysterical murderousness. I unloaded mybox. I was carrying alcohol, oranges and eggs. All the different
colours looked charming on the table. Everyone smiled and clapped.
The tension ebbed.
"Do you know Louise?" accused one of the jealous faces as theballet dancer coiled herself around me.
"Oh yes, we've met," I said cautiously.
"Today is my birthday. I can do anything," cried Louise andinvolved herself sexually with casseroles and cooking pots.
I sat down to look at the row of ex-lovers. One was very fat, one
was very thin and one was very small. I decided that I was underan obligation to become an ex-lover as I am very tall, in order tocomplete the row. They were all creative interesting women, theirfaces twisted with jealousy. Louise made love to the herrings, thenwe got two each, bristling with butter and parsley. Helene enjoyedevery moment of our discomfort.
"And how is Anna?" asked one of the ex-lovers, suddenly
turning very nasty as we melted our square sugars in tiny cups.
Anna is the most beautiful woman I have ever seen. Anna is
Helene's other lover. Anna has tenure in the post.
"Ah .. . c;a va," said Helene uneasily. Louise rumbled like Etna.
All the ex-lovers looked pleased. Helene and I looked at each othershiftily, like suspected conspirators.

63

The ex-lovers pushed off at midnight. I discovered that they
were all staying together like the three musketeers. Louise was
dancing in front of the mirror in the bathroom. Helene and I
smoked at the bottom of the garden. Her city seems unlighted in
the night; the only spotlit monument is the cathedral, a massive
red-brick fortress in which the local Protestants were massacred. It
is full of famous fifteenth century sculptures attributed to an
Italian master of Giotto's school. All the women look shifty, with
ambiguous eyes. The Magdalens cover their pots, the Virgins pulltheir robes around them, Judith is no better than she ought to be.
Helene loves the cathedral. This is entirely suitable.
We watched the red turrets burning in the warm night. It was
my serve.
"Helene, I know that this is going to sound silly as you obviously had a scenario of some kind in mind. But why on earth did
you invite them all on the same evening?"
She stared at me resentfully, like a child being bullied.
"Chantal did that to me. Invited all her ex-lovers. And they
were all friends . Friends! Can you imagine? They got on. And I was
the only woman there who was a cauldron of jealousy. I thought I'd
explode."I looked at her. I was about to say something patronising andbrutal about petty vendettas and revenges that ruined good dinners. But I thought better of it and smiled wearily.
"Let's have a beer," I said.
I have never been in love with Helene, but I am very fond of her.
Do heterosexual people permit themselves the luxury of breaking up, then hating each other forever - with impunity? Do they
just vanish into that great safe sea of other heterosexuals and neversee one another again? Martin tells me that gay men sometimes
never know who it is that they have just sucked off. I said that it
must be odd to kiss only cocks, not faces. He said that he liked themystery and that cocks were often more honest than faces . And
then again, I do know gay men, Martin among them, who havedevastating love affairs, every bit as horrendous as our own, andstorm out of rooms smashing glasses against potted plants. I haveseen poets pinned against radiators, facing accusations of infamy
which revealed the Tolstoyan dimensions of the accuser's imagination. Or perhaps the astonishing sexual talents of the accused.
Jealousy magnifies, distorts, like a fairground mirror. It turns thelover and the beloved into monsters.
64With us it is not possible to run away from the past. Your exlover is your present lover's ex-lover but one, which is when she
was with you. And if you try to escape the enchanted castle byadvertisements in another area you'll find that the woman who
replies was lovers with your first lover after she was married andbefore she came out for real this time and hasn't she changed? The
silk twist that binds us is unbreakable, invisible, eternal. It is like
God's love: theoretical, ever-present and stifling. We meet what is
actually just one of the facts of life in small communities with abarrage of ideologies - Lesbian ethics, significant friendship andpolitical continuity. Sometimes this works. As it did with Chantal's
ex-lovers who all but formed a collective. More often it is simply a veil
for resentment, insecurity, violence and hypocrisy. Real feeling,brutal but honest, is channelled into decent behaviour in a fashion
worthy of an English village church flower committee. Mind you, I'm
not an enemy of decent behaviour and when I lived in an English
village one of those nice tight-curled, blue-rinsed old ladies drove oneof the others on the flower rota to a nervous breakdown. I told mymother all about it. "Oh yes," she said, "they're all Lesbians."
Well, Helene and Louise got up and went off to work the nextmorning. Not particularly early. I heard them making love in a
welter of shrieks and cries. It sounded fun. I stroked the cat. She'san interesting cat. Multicoloured, and she dreams. God knows
what about. Sometimes in the night she turns circles at the bottomof the bed, spitting and growling. Helene told me that one rarenight when she was sleeping alone she took the harlequin cat to
bed with her. In the grip of a nightmare the cat bit her ear and she
had to have an anti-tetanus injection. "How did you do that?"
asked the doctor. "My cat bit me in her dreams," said Helene andthe doctor went away shaking his head. "You could put an earring
through it," I suggested.
I walked round the town. It was quiet, sunny and free of
tourists. The British and the Dutch arrive in July. By the time they
get this far south they've already caught the sun. The British havebecome pink shrimps with densely packed freckles. The Dutch area magnificent toasted brown. The British have thermos flasks andare carrying melted plastic sacs of freezing fluid for their picnic
boxes. The Dutch wear anti-nuclear T-shirts and new trainers. I
watch them going into their hotels. This time of year the terrace
under the cathedral is empty. So I sat down with a coffee, my bluenote book and a sense of well-being. I was still writing when
Helene's Mercedes cruised round the corner.

65

Helene is not rich. She inherited a bit of money last year, but she
spent that on a laser photocopier and a new computer. She'salways had the Mercedes. It's one of those 1968 models with fins,leather seats and a walnut dashboard. She loves it so much that I
always say it's her other lover. The third lover, who is never indanger of becoming her ex-lover. She's put in seat belts, even at theback, and she has a mechanic who loves it as much as she does.
Early in the spring she got all the rust done and gave it a respray.
It's the original colour now - luxurious, strokable cream.
"Get in quick," said Helene, "we'll pick up Louise.""Where are we going?""The Conquistadora. You wanted to see everyone, didn't you?""Helene. Do you know what you're doing?""Of course I do. It's all arranged."
Anna runs the Conquistadora. With her ex-lover. The one
before Helene. Mine not to reason why. I felt like declaring that she
could certainly do as she liked, but that I was just an ordinary
person who poured acid on her verrucas every morning.
So we drove away across hills, past fields rampant with poppies, banks overflowing with wild daisies. The corn was rising fastin the May days. I cheered up as the Mercedes cruised over the hills
like Aladdin's carpet. Sunk in leather and cushions, my feet onwool mats, it was like driving along in a private club. The sun laid
little warm kisses all along my arm. Louise was doing the samething to Helene. Nobody had premonitions of disaster.
It's always exciting arriving in cities. Even the obligatory ten
kilometres of horror, half made roads, dank canals and pink-brickhigh-rise blocks were interesting. I looked around, enjoying the
mixture of flash investment and decrepitude. The Conquistadora
is a discreet private club in a back street. It's surprisingly lightinside. They don't have a license to sell hard liquor, but they dobeer, coffee and cocktails. They serve food. The cook is Spanish andshe's called Maria. Her food is worth fighting for and so is she.
Anna says that Maria is courted with flowers every evening, by the
woman she had chatted to the night before. She's employed to benice to everyone. So everyone is in love with her. I once asked forher photograph. She gave me one from a stash she keeps under thebar. We were early. So only Maria and Anna's ex-lover were there.
Both of them were cleaning glasses and smiling at each other.
I bought everyone a drink. Anna and her ex-lover are on Weight
Watchers, so they only drink Vittel. Nobody here believes in learning
to love their natural body weight. The dominant ideology, as seen66

on Tv, says that we all have to be as thin as pencils; so we are. And if
you aren't you join Weight Watchers and diet. We were all pleasantly
relaxed and the bar began to fill up at dusk. Then Anna walked in.
A woman who is brazen enough to hold an exclusively exlovers dinner party should not flinch when her two current lovers,
both of whom are quite aware of the situation and who the otherone is, actually, finally, eventually meet. Anna knew it wasn't me,
so it had to be the other one. The tall one with the back like anengineering construction and the arms like fluid tentacles. Anna
kissed me. Helene slunk into a corner. Louise looked into her drink.
Anna is very, very beautiful. You'd think she's older than she is.
She has black hair, cut like an Italian page boy, and wonderful browneyes. She's the sort of woman who poisons your wine if you don't
make love well, but covers you in roses if you do. She's tireless,dynamic, organised. Other women grow in her soil as if she werepure fertilizer. She stays close friends with all her ex-lovers.
"Well," she said, smiling at Helene, "aren't you going to
introduce me?"Helene hid guiltily under a table. And so it was I who introduced Anna to Louise. They kissed each other very cautiously,
three times, one cheek after another. Then they stepped back. Annasmiled. I told you, didn't 1. Anna is the most beautiful woman I
know. Louise thought so too. I could tell that she did. They liked
each other. That was dreadful, it really was adding irony to injury.
And so the evening began.
In some ways it went well. Maria's food was spicy and peculiar. Anna's ex-lover was pleased with the situation, played softmusic and was charming to her customers. All our friends came up
to join us . We sat at a large table, argued about politics, the war,books, moaned about money and unemployment, gossiped about
the past. We ordered more wine. Christelle came in at around ten
0' clock. I abandoned my self-appointed post as amiable distraction to talk to her, just us, at another table.
"How's it going?" I asked her.
"Oh, fine. Really fine. I'm just starting my third year at thehospital and I'm off on a 'stage' next Monday. Pediatrics. A hospitalin the Pyrenees. Just three weeks. I'm looking forward to it. C::a vachanger mes idees. I've had a bit of a problem. No, not with
Isabelle. She's not a Lesbian, you know. She's straight. But she's
still my best friend. Well, yes, at the beginning she had all the usual
prejudices. She actually said that she couldn't stand Lesbians. So I
said, well, do you like me, parce que moi, je suis comme <;a. I know

67

it's taking a risk. But it worked. She was really shaken. She realisedthat she was quite wrong about women like us. And she didn't
drop me. She started asking questions. We carne here once. She
really liked it. She liked the way that the women were all dressed
up. And that we chatted about ordinary things. Funny, isn't it, theideas people have. She did have a boyfriend, but it wasn't going too
well with him. He wanted it all his own way; so she packed it in andtold him to push off. Then suddenly, when I was round at herhouse, her parents - it was her mother at first - started in on me.
Really nasty. Saying how I wasn't welcome there as I wasn't thekind of person they wanted to have around. But nothing explicit.
Well, I went away at once and I wouldn't go into the house again.
I just sound the horn at the gate and Isabelle comes out. I asked her
what on earth had gone wrong as her parents had always been sosweet to me before. God, they've known me since the sixieme. I've
always been her best friend. And she said that she'd tackled her
Dad and he'd said that he wasn't born yesterday and he could seethat I was cornme <;a and he didn't want his daughter being led
astray by women like that. Is it written all over my face? Or my
clothes? Do I look like a Lesbian? What does a Lesbian look like?
We all look different, don't we? Was it that I didn't talk about
boyfriends? Or bring one round? Merde, I had to tell Isabelle
straight out. She's my very best friend and she hadn't noticed. So
what's so special about her parents? My parents know. They accept
it. But I wouldn't want my mother to hear people criticising me inthe street. Or getting phone calls. It's all caused problems for
Isabelle. She won't drop me. She's too loyal. I know, I thought that
too. And it's because of that honesty and courage that she's still mybest friend. Even if she is straight. But she's quarrelled with herparents and she's very upset.""Did her boyfriend know that you were a Lesbian?" I asked.
She looked astonished.
"Yes, he did. He must have done. I think Isabelle told him.""Look no further than the ex-lover," I said.
Sometimes we betray each other unforgivably, giving away
kingdoms, selling the pass to the enemy for a lot less than thirty
pieces of silver. But sometimes we betray each other in tiny ways.
Over very ordinary things.
All was not well within the eternal triangle. Anna had noticed
something which she did not like. It was eleven o'clock and theroom was full of smoke. The meal was over and tempers were bottoming out. The bar was overladen with women, leaning inwards

68like chickens over their millet dispenser. Someone chose very loudmusic. Louise got up to go to the 100 and Anna immediately asked
Helene to step outside. A deadly hush, worthy of the moment
when the saloon door swings open and the gunslinger walks in,descended over our table. But some little part of us was excited anddelighted. We all turned white as daisies. Louise came out of the
100 and saw at once that Anna, who had been looking dangerous,
had gone. Nor was there any sign of Helene.
"Let's dance," cried Louise, seizing my arm with her doublejointed tentacle. That was the signal 1suppose. The room suddenly
erupted with pure joy. We waltzed, we tangoed, we smooched. Weeven did a Russian dance, bobbing about on our buttocks, flinging
our legs out with maniacal enthusiasm. We menaced the floorboards, thumping out splintering rhythms. The entire cafe-restaurant joined us. Someone started taking photographs. Someone
mean bought two rounds of drinks and paid for it with a 500 francnote. Anna's ex-lover cello taped it to the bar mirror as a trophy. We
yelled for more wine. 1 must have given myself a hernia. Louise
danced with every woman in the house, bewitching them all withher strength and grace. We clapped. We cheered. We wanted more.
We were all young and in love. We didn't notice when Anna cameback into the bar, her face silent and blank.
Exuberance subsided into stupor at about two 0' clock. Louiseand 1 waltzed down the street and stumbled into the glistening
creamy Mercedes. Helene was weeping over the steering wheel.
Huge heart-rending sobs pouring over the upholstery.
We put the car into the Lavage at Intermarche late next morning to wash away the trauma of the night. 1 stood beside Helene
watching the rainbow dervishes glitter and whirl. We were hollow-eyed, hung over and depressed. It was not a moment to botherwith tact.
"So you didn't tell her you were still sleeping with Louise?" 1
said bluntly.
"How could I?""Well, you told her that you were still sleeping with that other
woman last year, didn't you?""Of course. We have no secrets. It' s very important to be utterly
honest.""I see.""I would have told her.""But she noticed before you had the chance to do so."Helene shrugged remorsefully.

69

"I'm in a dreadful state," she said.
We stood watching her 1968 Mercedes becoming graduallywhiter with foam.
A week later Helene rang me up and said "Hello" in a very
shaky voice.
"I've finished with Louise.""Oh God, was it awful?""She shouted and cried and made a scene in the street.""Did she come round to see you at the house?""Yes. Once. And Anna was there.""Oh my God.""Anna sat at the bottom of the garden while Louise blacked myeye. It's still yellow round the edges.""Oh no," I groaned weakly, "she actually hit you.""And then she came round the next morning to apologise andthat was much worse. She sat on my lap for three hours and weboth cried ourselves into hysterics. Then Chantal came past on her
way to her judo lesson and she started crying too.""Listen," I said, "don't go anywhere. I'm coming down to seeyou."
But Helene's eye recovered its usual sensuous lustre and ourcommunityre-established its equilibrium. Louise still wasn' tspeaking to Helene; and so we all waited patiently for Louise to get overit and come round. Wounded feelings are a luxury most of us areunable to afford. Pride is never a cheerful long-term companion.
You get lonely after a while. But Louise didn't come round. Helene
sent her a little note. Louise sent it back. I sent her a card. Louiserang me up and said that she didn't feel like dancing anymore. It'svery hard being someone's ex-lover. We all are. But that doesn't
make it any easier.
The days were getting colder when I pulled in at the petrol
pump by the Lavage. The boy on the pump looked at me hard, thenlit up with instant recognition.
"It was you wasn't it? Who put the car into the Lavage. And left
all the windows open.""No. Not me."But someone with a really nice old Mercedes had done it. Paid
for a 40 franc wash and had the mousse foaming all over the lea therseats, hand stitched cushions and into the shopping bags. She had
stood there screaming as the water poured in through every pore,70

into the body of the car. Screaming, but powerless to stop the
dancing rainbow whirls.
Only one person in town drove an elderly Mercedes. 1 walked
thoughtfully down the cat food section, peering at cans of Gourmet
and Sheba. Suddenly a woman's arm snaked around my waist and1 abandoned my trolley in a waltz. Louise took the lead, guiding
my steps, her eyes glittering like fencing rapiers. 1 hugged her andshe laughed.
"You did it.""I never did.""You're dancing."
She smiled.

Calliope
pen & inks

Lotza Luck

71

davida singer

scorpIO'When you loved her
did her red tongue
propel you to magic.
were her colors like an omen everywhere you looked
was it bursts and burstsof autumn,
percussion your heartbeat.
could you guess how every secretlies between her legs,a sign like summer thunder.
did she bare her magnet eyesand did they pull you
inside out.
did she swear
to wear all blackand brand her figure
down your back,until the night spread wide
and took you over.
keep it to yourself
but her aurais the siren unwinding.
and when she enters
the room is filled with her
like an electric shock.
when she dances
there is a snake loose an eagle on her headplutonic shadows
where she moves,
and few will ever dare
to go the distance.
72

Judy Freespirit

Persimmon
Small and hard I bloom from bud
to tight orange orb.
grow slowly,
sucking sap,
soaking sunshine,
usurping brilliance.
Later, taut and tough,my thick skin sleek and shiny,taste me andyour mouth will pucker,
dry and bitter as bile.
In time I ripen,
colors deepen,skin thins.
Don't take me for more mundane fruit,as though a lowly apple.
At last I'm soft and pliant,skin translucent
color brilliant.
Hold me in your palm and feel my heft.
Place me between your teeth
and suck me slowly,
slither tongued.
I will moisten your lips,
drip down your chin,melt in your mouthand leave my perfume on your fingertips.

73

Karen Erlichman

The Sex Journal

18 August 1990
A. The Lover
My girlfriend and I have been together for almost four years.
The passion between us was very strong from the beginning. For
many months she seemed to want to do it constantly. I'd come homefrom work and she'd be waiting, naked against the brown sheets andbatik quilt, that look in her eyes. Looking hungry, empty, impatient. And in the beginning, I was always excited to come home toher. But lately I seem to need at least an hour to detox from work
before I can even eat dinner, let alone fuck. I usually sit in front of
the TV and let my brain cells sizzle. Then, after I've eaten, by thetime I approach the bedroom she's already sleeping. Shut down.
I have to admit it - sometimes I have to make myself get in themood, y'know, set the scene. We're talking intense mental foreplay
here. We have to go to a particular movie, go dancing or go to a
party so I can get juiced up. But when we do have sex, I feel likeshe's not completely there with me. It's as if she wants me to wanther, but not to expect anything from her. So it's easier for her if she
pursues me, except she says I don't seem to like being seduced. I've
always gone for the" do-me-queens," you know the type: talk dirty
to her, touch her, squeeze her, suck her, fuck her. Then if I'm lucky
she'll roll over, make a quick trip to the bathroom and give it backto me. But with this woman it's different now. The do-me-queen
game seems to have failed us lately. Especially since she started
having the flashbacks. Have we fallen prey to the "lesbian bed
death syndrome"? It's those damn flashbacks.
It's been a long time since we last made love. A couple of weeks
ago we tried, but as soon as I touched her nipples she disappeared.
She was still lying there next to me, but she was gone. She seemedso empty and far away. When I kissed herit felt like shewas pullingaway from me, like she was going to gag or something. The truthis, it hurts me, and I miss her.

74

It's me, baby, just me, I tell her. I'm the one who loves you, I'll
take care of you. I'm not going to let anyone hurt you. There's
nobody else here, I promise. She needs me to talk to her while I
touch her or she imagines it's someone else, the ones who hurt her.
Everything was fine before she started therapy again. She says thisis part of her recovery. Part of me wants to help her. I wish I could
go back in time. I wish I could protect her. I wish I could erase all
the things that were done to her. But I also feel lost. Or I wonder if
it's me. I really hate this! Recovery, shmovery. I miss my baby.
I want to be with her. Lately we've been talking about how to
redefine sex. I like to lounge in bed on my days off late into themorning, reading my sex books and getting myself off. Maybe we
can do that together. I'd be willing to try that. I don't want to be too
demanding, but I just know there's some middle ground here. A
safe place for both of us. A clearing in a tangled forest.
B. The Other
Somewhere inside my head lust lurks like a quiet drumbeat.
It's buried under the shame. In order to find it I have to get throughthe shame. It's like learning to swim first before jumping off thehigh dive. Before, I just closed my eyes and jumped, but now I'm
so scared of the water. I'm afraid I'll drown. I'll be choking andgasping and there will be no one there to save me. But she's there,
in the water, begging me, urging me. "C'mon honey, it's okay. I'm
here. There's nobody else." The fear of diving is much worse than
the reality itself. I stand there, shaking til I'm blue and cold, nearly•bug-eyed and immobilized with pure terror.
This is what sex feels like lately. I wish I could feel the desire in
my body, but for now it's only in my head. Intellectual recognitionof the importance of sex is there, but the wanting is buried deep. I
can't bear the thought that we have become another lesbianstatistic. Another long term, asexual lesbian relationship. I can't
stand it. I thought it would be different this time.
In the beginning, I was always the one who wanted sex. I
fantasized about sex, I craved sex. I couldn't keep my hands andmouth off of her. But I was always given a NO in response.
Eventually, I stopped wanting it. I couldn't bear another no. And
then the flashbacks started. We'd be kissing, she'd bend down to75

suck my breasts, and suddenly he's there. I've gone back in time
sixteen years. She is gone and he's there. I open my eyes to look ather, to remind myself that it's my lover who's on top of me. It's nothim. No pussy juice for this girl. I'm dryas cotton, and my cuntfeels tight and locked up. No one in the world can crack thiscombination lock open. I tell myself, this is an act of love, not an actof sickness, incest. But it's too late. Before I even realize it, I'm
already gone. My spirit has left my body like a morning fog. Burnedoff, disappeared. Roll over and I'm gone.
Today I think, there must be another way. I can't promise heror myself that these flashbacks will stop anytime soon. I don't
know when it will be over. I know things won't go back to the way
they were. But it doesn't mean we can't have sex. It just means wehave to do it differently. It's kind oflike baked chicken. Eventually
you have to find new ways to cook it or you get sick of it.
So how do we do it differently? I'm asking the universe for theanswers. Just because I don't want to be touched right now doesn'tmean we can't have sex. Especially since I've been what she callsthe" do-me-queen" all this time. She's no stone butch, don't get me
wrong. But in the past when I've wanted to be the one in control,
the one touching her, the one talking dirty and asking what she
wants, she can't deal. So maybe this is karma. Maybe it's time forher to be the do-me-queen. It's time for me to ask what turns her
on, and if she doesn't know, then we figure it out together. It's notabout all or nothing; it's about change. It's about the unknown; I
never thought I'd have the option to do this differently, to do love
differently. I'm not only talkin' about sex. I'm talkin' about roles
and rules and creating a new paradigm for intimacy. Uh oh, theintellectual slut is at it again. If only I could get out of my head.

76

Teresa Stores

Cemetery Rules

I~e had a camellia dying in my car since the last time I visited
Grandma at the cemetery with Mama.
"Don't pick that," she says, frowning.
''Why?'' I ask, tracing crimson petals, soft and cool, with mythumb.
"I don't know." Her hands tighten on the rake she's brought
along. "Mama always said 'don't pick the flowers in the cemetery.'It's a rule."
Women in my family know all the rules. The stem of thecamillia is tough between my fingers. It won't be easy to break.
I remember Aunt Anne lying down on that grave with theangel statue. Mama and Grandma stood silent, mouths open andeyes wide. Even at twelve I knew you didn't walk on graves, muchless lie down on them. I heard Leslie, Aunt Anne's roommate forever since I could remember, chuckle softly behind me. We allwatched Aunt Anne focus her camera up at the angel and tombstone looming over her.
"Different perspective," she said and snapped.
I wondered what it looked like from her angle.

The cemetery was our filvorite playground. While the grownups
napped or rocked on the front porch in the heat of the afternoon,
the kids would retreat to the heavy silence of the cemetery. Soldiersfrom all the wars, baby graves, the plague grave with its list of 25- bones all jumbled together down there -, the family plot which
Grandma insisted we rake and weed regularly ... these were ourhaunts while the tree frogs screamed for rain and moss hung still
like Grandma's shawl on the hook by the back door. We liked towalk the crumbling stone wall separating the black section fromthe white, but we never crossed over.
Mama and I rake the sand of the family plot into a curving
pattern of lines. She sweeps the granite with a hank of moss. She

77

wears the shawl she grabbed off the hook behind the front door.
She catches me up on the family news: cousin with cancer in her
toe, great uncle with a broken hip, second cousin's daughter
pregnant at 14. Aunt Anne and Leslie are "fine, fine. They seem tobe ha ppy," Mama sa ys and shakes her head as she looks back at theneat family plot.
When I pick the flower in the cemetery, I say, "Mama, I'mgay."
Now I find a beautiful dried camellia in my car.

Diamonds
pen & ink

Lotza Luck
78

Margaret Blanchard

Dormant"'D ormant' she says we are."Stagnant with fear of losing her,
fixed in stalemate, I ask,''What does 'dormant' mean to you?"as you set more wood in the stove.
For answer you lead me out
along the frozen stream
to listen to water flow
beneath the lull of ice where liquid shadows,
waterfalls under stalled surfaces,
exchange muted forms.
Laced edges of melting pools
remind us of motion at the heartof this standstill.
We slide across the pondto the half-frozen holein front of the beaver shackwaiting for the beaver to chomp
her way out again.
There, your thin form chubby
with insulation, your blue eyes
sheltered between red cap
and purple muffler, you peer
at mysterious bugs gliding
in languid suspension
beneath the thinest pane
while I inch along,news of accidents
brittle in my mind.
We hear the ice shift and crack
beneath the huge drum of pond.
79

On shore we discovera dried hydrangea bent
whole and static on her stem
over a solid rock.
We speak of the latencyof stars at noon.
During this intermission,in our footsteps crunchingacross the crust of snow,in percussion practiceamong the many eggshell shades,in crystalline forms dripping
and refreezing, we hear promises:
songs of winter turning into spring.
Beyond the pond, on the crest of the hill,
frost on treetips restsin the refrain of a pausing sun.
As chickadees nod off, buried seeds shiver,stars emerge, we return to embers
slumbering in the cold stove.

80Patricia

A Ring To Feel Loved
Scotland - February 1990
Standing in the constant Glasglow drizzle waiting for the # 62
bus. Grey sky, grey street, grey tenements. I'm not sorry to beleaving it. A forty minute journey. Time to scribble a postcard to
Jutta. I need to feel in regular contact. The insecurity always there.
I wonder what it'll be like when I'm there. I'mall set, only six weeks
now. I've made all the arrangements. Handed in my notice at workand rented out the house. I'm definitely going.
I decided when Jutta was last in Glasgow. .I could be with her
and not just seeing her a week here and there every few months. I
smile, love-of-my-life. I'd been practicing controlling love. So I fellin love with a woman who lives a thousand miles away. Controllable passion. But now I've taken the plunge - ignored the voicethat says don't change your life for someone. Can I do it? Suspend
disbelief and be in love? I'm the one who looks cynically on as
friends fall in love, set up home, become a couple. Never again I
said, it's not for me. A flash of panic. How am I going to cope withbeing partnered, feeling part of a couple?
Jolted back to reality as the bus comes to a sudden halt. We've
been shot at - not an unusual event. Boys will be boys and Glasgow boys adapt their hunter instincts to urban life and aim their air
rifles at the big orange buses. No one hurt but upstairs window
shattered - all change.
Germany - October 1990
Eight months later, remembering that, I'm most shocked at mylackof reaction to the bus being shot. It passed me by as just anotherevent of mindless male brutality.
How important honesty is in a relationship and how hard it is
to be truthful and avoid the power games. I tot up the achievements of the past year-learned to ride a bike, tend a garden, chopwood and light a wood stove, speak enough German and plait thethreads of love and trust into a bond with Jutta.
I've been living on an emotional merry-go-round. Not wanting to
weave a web of entanglement. Wanting to love and feel strong andindependent, whole and partnered and loved . We're struggling81

together to match feelings to beliefs . I miss her if I don't see herevery day.
The framed photo of Heather and Marion was a leaving gift.
They're gazing adoringly into each other's eyes - they always
did. The present was so I didn't forget the slagging I gave them
about it. And there I was running away to be with Jutta. Marion ran
away too - from the bombs and bigotry of Belfast - the mountainof patriarchal programming crushes down on us as we carve a
space to love each other. They've gone the whole hog - bought ahouse together, set up home, a couple. The programme now goeson to having a baby, and who knows?
Heather was sitting on the edge of the settee constantly fiddling with a ring on her finger. Eventually I took the hint and asked- "What's with the ring?" They'd exchanged rings she explained- blushing, smiling, glowing - isn't love wonderful?
Germany - May 1990
I'm in the Strassenfest. Feeling the need to have Jutta's arm tohold onto as I push my way through the crowd from stall to stall.
I'm feeling lonely and the tears prickle as I gaze at the beautiful
handicrafts. I want to ask the price of something but the effort of
speaking German is too much. I push on through the crowd. Myeyes light on a ring - a beautiful handcrafted ring. A ring to feel
loved. A luxurious feeling of warmth rises from my belly to fill meout. A band on my finger as a constant reminder of her love - asymbol of being cherished to carry with me everywhere. We canbuy each other rings . I feel stronger and more confident already.
Tha t nigh t I ask her. Lying wra pped in her arms, legs en twined,kissing and gazing adoringly into each other's eyes. I'm feeling shy
as I hold her, rubbing noses, lips brushing, stroking her hair, herface - wanting to ask and eventually do. "No" she says - very
gently. Her arms never slacken their hold, the rhythm of her caressnever falters -her love stays firm but the answer is clear- "No."See what I mean about the emotional merry-go-round? Looking
back now I think she was right. It has crossed my mind that being inlove is not good for me. I daydream and weave fantasies of romance,
but my imagination is bounded by the images of patriarchal "love."
Germany - July 1990
I've been difficult all weekend. I don't get on with her friends,
I don't like socialising with men and I can' t keep my mouth shut.
82

They all speak German and feel comfortable together. I rely on
Jutta to translate - not only the words but the social world thatfeels alien to me. I feel I'm a responsibility for her, a social embarrassment. So I withdraw and become rude and unfriendly.
I make a cup of tea and we try to talk. I make a joke aboutmonogamy and she says she wants to rediscuss it, she's not surepatriarchal concepts like monogamy have a place in lesbian relationshi ps. I try to remain calm bu t in my head I'm screaming, ''Whois it?" I rack my brain, mentally going through her friends andacquaintances convinced it's the beginning of the end. She soothes
and reassures but I'm wary. I search her eyes for the truth. I hatemyself - the jealous lover - and can see she hates it too.
What's wrong with me? I prided myself on not being jealousand possessive and now the mention of nonmonogamy has me ina fury. I withdraw into bitterness, suspicions and smouldering resentment. I blame her for my decision to come to Germany. I feelbetrayed. I grieve and make plans to leave, to move on. I wonder
what to do with my life.
A thin thread of communication sustains our relationship.
She's alarmed and can't understand my reaction. She doesn't
realise she's demolished a fan tasy world I'd crea ted and occupied
in the last months. (So much for honesty in relationships.) She
doesn't know the right-on lesbian feminist, the hardbitten cynic
had lazed in the summer sun weaving fantasies of domestic bliss.
Living together in cozy harmony all smiles and warmth, cooking
together, eating together, you wash/I'll dry. She reminds me I was
already married and hated every minute of it. Eventually we laughtogether and I know she's right.
It was months before we were close enough to talk about how
two big strong independent women could love and feel loved. And
try to figure out what we wanted. That's the hardest. The structuresof patriarchal wedlock have to be challenged but I'm still not sureif or how nonmonogamy works.
There are women with whom I feel an unbreakable bond oflove, who have loved and sustained me through many roles. They
are my friends, why should sex make a difference? Together we cancreate another way of loving.
Well- it didn't work out that way. It's months since I've had
any contact with Jutta . Isn't it amazing how quickly someone canemotionally withdraw? It's a lonely feeling. I made plans to move83

on in the new year to a universi ty town an hour's dri ve a wa y which
had an active lesbian community. I had great hopes for our relationship in the future. But Jutta was not so optimistic, which I felt wasreflected in her unilateral declaration of celibacy. Of course how else
can anyone decide to be celibate? It had to be her decision and she had
every right to make it. I tried to understand and be supportive but interms of our relationship I couldn't hel p but feel I was being punished.
Scotland - January 1991
As I hurry through the cold wet Edinburgh streets I'm excitedand happy. I said I'd be in at 10 and she could phone me. I'm sittingby the phone when she rings. I'm pleased to hear her voice, howwonderful it'll be to see her again in only a week. She sounds terribly down but says she's just tired. I go over the arrangements but
she's unenthusiastic as I remind her of the goodies I can bring. I
keep asking, what is it, what's wrong? Nothing, nothing, nothing,
we can talk about it when you're here. Talk about what? I make ajoke, "Don't tell me you've fallen in love with someone else." Along silence; I clutch the receiver and feel myself falling, somewhere inside I'm doing backward somersaults in slow motion. I
don't know how long it is before I find my voice, "Oh."I get off the phone as soon as possible. Rejoin friends in the livingroom and tell them. They rally round, hugs, kisses, sympathy,
support and alcohol. Lots of alcohol. I don't know what to think. We'dnever got round to discussing the details of nonmonogamy, how it
would work in practice. I'd assumed celibacy canceled out nonmonogamy, but obviously I was wrong. Very soon I'm drunk andworking myself into a jealous rage. My worst fear is that they'retalking about me, laughing at me, sitting together maliciously
gossiping or, worse, pitying me. My friends gently draw me backto reality. Soon I stagger off to bed, numbed by alcohol.
Three hours later I'm wide awake again, staring into thedarkness of a sleeping house. That's the problem with alcoholit's an immediate but temporary anesthetic, and facing the painwith a hangover is worse. I have to speak to her - never mind the
distance, the time, the cost - I have to speak to her. She's sympathetk reassuring, loving and eager to tell me that her lover wants
me to know she's terribly sorry I'm so hurt. It's exactly the wrong
thing to say. Within seconds I'm in a screaming rage.
The next week blurs into one long sleepless night. I said I'dcope, said I'd be reasonable. And look at me I can't even manage
84

basic self-maintenance. What a state I'm in. Eventually I give up
trying to be reasonable and phone her demanding that she give her
new lover up and promise never to see her again or else! She's sorry
but there's no way she can agree to such demands. I realise she means
it and am instantly reduced to a snivelling pathetic mess. My humiliating neediness is repulsive to us both. She says she'll phone.
I wait and wait and wait. Friends come and rescue me from thephone. But I'm on edge, totally preoccupied expecting her arrival
every second. In my desperation I convince myself she hasn't
phoned because she's on her way. I calculate how long it will takeher to get to me. If she leaves immediately she'll be here now, ornow, or now. Eventually, despair turns to rage, they're the only two
emotions I'm capable of. At least rage gives me energy to move. I
won't let her ruin my life, I make plans that don't involve her andI'm pleased that when she eventually phones to say she can comein two weeks' time I've already arranged to be gone.
Germany - March 1991
Light another cigarette from the stub of the first, eyes still on thewine bottle. It's only 8 a.m., I can't start drinking yet. Less than 12hours into spending a nice weekend together and I'm sitting alone
in her kitchen in moody silence, chain smoking and alreadyconsidering opening the bottle and numbing out.
This nonmonogamy stuff is doing my head in. I feel such apressure to be fun to be with, stimulating, interesting, amusing,
attractive, good company. We go to the women's cafe and catch up
on each other's news. Except its my news she's catching up on, shesays little of what she's been doing. She doesn't give me information she thinks will upset me and I try not to ask questions I can't
cope with the answers to. I watch what I ask, and keep up a cheerfulfacade to cover the silences tha t speak volumes. I don't want to be
unfavourably compared to other lovers.
But now I've blown it, I've broken my own rule and asked aquestion and right enough I can't cope with the answer. She can't
understand my feelings . Love isn't like a cake to be divided up,
more for her, less for me. Love is a bond, a line between you andanother person. I know, I know. "There are women with whom I
feel an unbreakable bond - they are my friends, why should sex
make a difference?" I wrote it, I believe it, I wish I could understand why I can't feel it. What I can feel is that I'm losing her andshe refuses to acknow ledge tha t this is happening. She tells me that85

the problem is me, I'm imagining things and creating difficulties.
"You're just jealous," she says, and with a wave of her handdismisses it. She can't help me, she claims never to have experienced feelings of jealousy. Ish u t up and keep my feelings to myself.
The silences between us grow and grow.
We conclude the weekend with an absurdly rational discussion re-establishing our ground rules for successful nonmonogamy.
Throughout this discussion I'm calm, cool and rational and steadily
I drink my way through the bottle of wine. Afterwards I'm desperate to feel close to her, to make some contact. But it doesn't work.
I dress and leave for my train in a daze of desolation.
A week later I get her letter: how lovely it was to see me, howmuch she enjoyed the weekend, when can we get together again?
I sit and stare at the letter for a long time. I can't decide whether tojust let our relationship fade quietly, the silences spreading until
there's nothing left, or start sending her hate mail. I'd been sofrightened of losing her that I'd felt any compromise was worth it.
But now I realise I've nothing left to lose. We're miles apart now
even when we're together.
We struggle through a couple more miserable meetings. I giveup pretending everything is OK, and my pent up feelings erupt inanger. She's shocked and hurt, she feels I've been lying to her anddoesn't know how she can ever trust me again. Everything I say istaken as a personal attack on her other lover. It isn't hard in the end
to just decide to stop seeing each other. Neither of us has any energy
left.
So that's that then. At first not contacting her feels as hard as
giving up cigarettes. I follow all the good advice: don't sit at homebrooding, get out and about and involved in things. And she isalways on my mind, an acute sense of loss is constantly with me,
frequently red ucing me to tears. If we can break free from compulsory heterosexuality, we can break free from compulsory coupledom. I have my friends, I am not without love in my life, I am notalone in the world.
I'm still not sure if or how nonmonogamy works. Given the
difficulties we have in creating lesbian love I think it's hard to avoid
manipulation, using nonmonogamy as an excuse to a void the risks
of intimacy or as a way of keeping a lover on her 'best behaviour"and under control. Honesty in relationships is the most difficult
thing to achieve.

86Germany - July 1991
We met yesterday for the first time in months and spoke. About
the fact that I still love her and I'm still in pain and I want to havecontact with her and is it possible to build a friendship from the
rubble. It was hard, the whole day feeling choked with emotion
and trying to talk and trying to be honest. Partof the problem is we
don't have a language for this, for honest contact between women.
I'm still running after her. It took three letters from me to get her
to phone and agree to meet. She said she couldn't do it sooner,
didn't feel safe enough. Per ha ps she needed the protection of her new
love before she could meet me. I would have felt stronger too being
able to say yes, I'm in love again. Why does it feel so competitive?
I know this is something I need to deal with. I feel I've been
towing a trailer filled with hurts for years. I ne~d to try to do something about it myself. But how and what I've no idea, except good
mothering - eat well, sleep well, get plenty of fresh air and exercise.
Basic advice for the invalid. For the in-valid what? The in-valid
woman who needs someone to authenticate her. I remember ayoung woman proudly showing off her new engagement ring look, look, someone loves me, I'm real, I exist, I'm worthwhile.
I'm happy to reject all that. So why am I left with such a painful
feeling of aloneness? A friend suggests another way of looking at
it: as an awareness of our own amazing uniqueness, and seeking
out like-minded souls with whom we can mutually celebrate ourwonderfulness . The trick is to find the balance. I see the deadening
pattern I'm caught in, one I see acted out all around me. She wants
me and I'm off, distancing myself to protect my amazing uniqueness. She distances herself from me and I'm forever pursuing.
There must be a way lesbians can avoid these power games inrelationships.
Why does sex make such a difference?
I have friends with whom I share love. We belong to a community of lesbians and together we must be able to find a way of loving
free from the patriarchal games of possession and ownership. I'm
struggling to believe that the woman who can make my life
worthwhile is me.
I've bought myself a ring - a beautiful handcrafted ring - aring to feel loved.

87Kate Taylor

Love Hangs on the Line
Once heads were removed
and left on the kitchen
table toprevent listening
Once battalions of storks
bombed cottages withbundles ofdestiny.
Once words went to market
in tiny rows
like ants ona battlefield.
Today love hangson the line, crisp,
colorful linen, flappingin sooty air.

88Donna Allegra

Brownstones

If I hadn't come back around my way, I'd never have found myway home. My Crown Heights neighborhood in Brooklyn is awhole other story than the tales told on Manhattan's Lower East
Side. The Brooklyn Bridge just doesn't span the pages between myhometown and the borough they call the City.
I couldn't find an affordable apartment after leaving Leslie.
Some of the story is called gentrification: real estate investors highfashioning the neighborhood with pricey shops and restaurants,
luxury housing skyrocketing the tenement rents and edging thepoorer people out for good.
The real truth is that I just wasn't pulling together my pieces
fallen off from that badly-broken love affair. I'd opened my heart
wide for Leslie and foolishly ascribed the highest motives to herevery act. I sometimes think, had she been Black, I could have
known better. I didn't trust myself alone and I needed familiar ground
until I could get back on track. As much as Mother disapproved of
my going out so much with women - "I didn' t raise my child tobecome a buIld agger" - she welcomed me back home.
I didn't tell any intimate details, but she could sense mysadness and probably knew the reason why. Mother's no slouchand has told me often enough, "If you knew one tenth of what I've
forgotten, daughter, you'd be in much better shape."
Almost a year passed before I did anything other than comehome from the library, buy groceries and hide from myself in abook, looking up only now and again to weep. Slowly but surely,
my balance started to return. When you give yourself time to do
nothing, a lot of lost sheep come home to rest.
One May evening I heard the Mr. Softee truck tinkle its siren song
under my window and the children gathering around it. A whole newbunch of kids swear they own St. Marks Avenue and I don't know asingle one of them who ride their bikes up the alleyways into thebackyards to play handball, running bases, or jump double dutch.
I put down my novel to go outside and sit on the stoop where
I could watch the kids and hear their laughter. I'd try to see who'd89

favor butter pecan, pistachio or banana-chocolate swirl from theice cream truck.
Mother was down there, talking to Mrs. Singleton, but I didn't
join them. I'd never been very responsive to our next-door
neighbor's prodding me for talk of myself or her efforts to sed uce
me with allusions to luscious gossip. I had a reputation for being
shy, but the greater truth was that I didn't like her nosing around,sniffing out juicy tidbits that she'd parade like a trophy to draw
acclaim to herself.
Not that I'd ever interacted much with other people, for thatmatter. If my report cards read "A" in all subjects, whattheyleftout
was "Michelle does not play well with children." I'd learned to put
a bookish and foggy air about me to keep people at a distance. This
worked better on adults than with children.
But something did pierce me when I heard Mrs. Singleton say
to Mother, "So here she comes, just as proud as can be in her
construction boots. You'd never know it now, but Renee was themost feminine little baby you ever did see; such a dainty little girlbefore her mother passed. In my day, no woman would want tobecome a common laborer."'Well now Joyce, times have changed. The women today do allsorts of things they didn't used to. Of course there were always a
few doctors and lawyers, but now they're common place. What's
news is the women police, those girl car mechanics and the like.
And no reason why not. I like it when I see the lady bus driver orhear the female subway conductor."'Well, jobs is one thing, but I want a man taking my daughterout on a Saturday night," Mrs. Singleton pronounced.
Mother said nothing to this and I called out, "Hey Renee. How
you doing?" as she waved hello to Mother and Mrs. Singleton, notseeing me Sitting on the steps to the stoop.
"Michelle? Well look who's here! What brings you back to theblock? It takes all these years for you to come visit your poor oldmother?" She winked at Mother who put hands on her hips
approving Renee and looked down at me with a "Hmph.""Mm hmm. My child gets her degree in library science, moves
to Greenwich Village and I don't see hide nor hair of her for months
at a time," she sniffed to Renee. "But now she's back under mywing, where she belongs," she raised her eyebrows to me.
90

'Well, dag, Mrs. Walker. You should let the girl out for fresh air
every little once in a while. I left the block when I was 17 and cameback to live when I was 23 and I never knew Michelle had evengone or come back," Renee joshed. I didn't let on that their tandem
teasing delighted me.
"So what are you up to these days, Renee? How you been?""Time goes so fast, I just don't know.""Before you two get started: Michelle, don't forget to pick up
my clothes from the cleaner's before Evelyn's closes. I have to getdinner ready.""All right, Mother.""I'm heading that way, Michelle. I'll walk you down the block
and we can get caught up."
I told Renee that I worked at New York University's Bobst
Library and took literature classes for recreation; that I'd left myapartment, no longer wanting to live with a roommate; that I wasstaying with Mother until an affordable situation came up. She told
me of her apprenticeship in the electricians' union and her job on
a 50-story office building with men who in their more sensitive
moments said, "Oh shit look at this! It's a girl. How ya doin, hon?"
After stopping off at the cleaner's, we crossed the street to herbuilding, reminiscing. When we were kids on the block, Renee had
been best friends with Terry Signore, Evelyn's granddaughter, andhad played more with the gang around the corner. She had more
to tell of who got married, got a city job, got arrested, overdosed.
She snorted, "You, Cheryl Marks and Debbie Richards were inthat college-bound league. By junior high we were in different worlds.
But even before that, I could never touch you. You were always sostuck on Yvonne Hicks."
I smiled at her summation and nodded "yes." It was true that
Yvonne had been my best friend through our elementary schooldays at PS. 83. "Everyone else seemed too rough and tough for me.
Come junior high, Mother sent me to Tilden, that mostly white schoolout in Flatbush." Taking on Mother's accent, "If I can't send you backto Jamaica to get a real education, I' ll have to settle for second-best
and put you with the white kids who'll at least get something."
I remembered how I didn't want to teach as Mother was
encouraging me to do. I'd cringed at the thought of all those little
people expecting so much of me. "But Michelle, you'll be older and91

far wiser than they. Teachers get a good salary with retirement
benefits. It's a secure city job." Well, to me children were muchworse than adults. I felt burdened with responsibility not to hurt
their feelings as mine had been. But the bottom line was they werepeople; and too many at one time for my taste.
Library science, however, appealed to me. While I was at
Hunter College to major in a career in public books, the athletic
girls began to interest, then distract me, especially in spring when
the warm air made everyone giddy. At times, I'd felt dizzy withdesire. A little searching through the card catalogues for entries
under "Homosexual" and "Lesbian" confirmed my worries andtold me everything I dreaded knowing.
As usual when memories came up for air, my conversation
slowed down. As if to keep us talking, Renee spoke of going to
Brooklyn College to study physical education and become a gym
teacher. "I put more energy into smoking herb and drinking wine thanstudying physiology. At the time, it just seemed like a better idea to do
the rent-a-cop full-time, ya know?" she trailed off with a sad chuckle.
"I was a guard on this job tha t they'd mostly finished building
and the furniture was moved in. I got to talking with this sister who
was an electrician there. She practically hounded me into getting
an application for her union's a pprenticeship training program so
I could make some real money. I was pretty foggy from all the reefer
I was doing, but the money sounded right and she had a trade.
That's knowledge nobody can take away: I wanted that."
Renee looked at me as if taking my measure for all of her
dimensions and I think I passed inspection. "I also knew I needed
to stop getting high to have it. I decided to come back home and getclean. My father had passed and this brownstone was the bestplace for me to begin to grow into whatever I could be without thedrugs. You know? I used to think it was cool and strong to always
keep my feelings under wraps, to look like I was absolutely rightand not admit I made any mistakes. Now what makes me strongis that I can show some emotion, set things right when I screw up
and learn something useful from it. I see myself like a river. One
drop doesn't seem like much, but all the water moving together in
one direction is where the power comes from."
I was listening to the tide of emotion behind her words,
fascinated by the spirit animating her. Neither of us had mentioned
92

any boyfriends. I was pretty sure about Renee, but could she tell
about me?
"Dag, its 9:00! Your mother must be worried about you, Michelle. Do you want to call her to let her know you're okay?""She knows I'm okay, Renee. I'ma woman now." I looked into
her eyes as I spoke, hoping she picked up the scent on my trail.
'Why don't you come by for dinner with Mother and me
tomorrow if you're free?""I have a meeting with my clean and sober support group
tomorrow, but I'm clear for Friday."
So that's how we began, or rather, picked up, mid-stream.
Curiously, Mother welcomed Renee. They had a mutual interest in current events and shared indignation over racial politics,
which I gladly left them to discuss and solve without me, thankyou. 1972 was an election year, so Blacks were important.
Monday and Wednesday evenings Renee went to school as partof her apprenticeship training. Tuesdays and Thursdays she met withher clean and sober support group. I'd started volunteering to readstories to children two times a week at the library on Eastern Parkway
and Schenectady Avenue. We'd touch base sometimes on the stoop
and exchange stories of our days at work on those evenings.
Friday night dinners became fairly regular for the three of us.
Renee's family was from Virginia and she loved Jamaican dishes,so I made my variations on Mother's recipes for curried chicken,
codfish, coconut peas and rice. Mother would usually leave us toourselves shortly after the meal. We'd talk in my room or go for awalk or to the movies. We'd been children together and could
connect from those core selves and then appreciate the layersgrown over the years.
Once I was sure of my rising feelings, I set to work. I was subtle:
a sprinkle of perfume, an open-throated blouse, a better cut ofslacks on Fridays.
And Renee was working her side of the street. She brought
flowers "for the dinner table." She'd go to the gym before coming by
and was pumped-up when she arrived. Her shirts were starched andher pants pressed, fresh from Evelyn's Cleaners. When we went
walking, she took the outside lane, let me go through doors andnarrow passages first and got very vocal in return when men threw
rude come-ons our way. I felt valued and cared for with Renee at my
side.

93

One Saturday, we were strolling up Eastern Parkway towards
Prospect Park. Renee smiled towards the white truck with the redand blue trim. The Mr. Softee jingle was the same as it had been in
our childhood.
"He should be around our way by 7: 15. He probably has a route
mapped out.""How about a cone? My treat."
Several children were ahead of us, eager, laughing, begging
their mothers to let them have some ice cream.
''What do you want, Renee?""I'll take a pistachio cone.""Umm, nice choice, I'm having a maple walnut cup."
We resumed our stroll.
"Thanks, Michelle, this is great.""Can I have a taste of yours"?
"Let me wipe this off first." Some ice cream had melted fromthe cone onto her hand. I wanted those drippings. "No, here," I
said, and guided her wrist up to me. I lapped from her fingers onto
her palm, tongued the grooves between her fingers. I licked thesensitive area on the back of her hand, ostensibly to get the sweet
taste of ice cream, but hoping to stir some feelings in her.
"Hold still, I'm not done yet." I scolded.
We were both near laughing.
''Want some of mine?" She nodded like a young girl, not sureher mother would allow her what she really desired. I was about
to spoon some into her mouth, when his voice intruded.
"C' mere sugar. I got something for you to lick only a real man's
got. You too fine and foxy to go to waste like that." Before I could
give him a piece of my mind, Renee was shouting, "Look you
stupid broken-down, raggedy-assed, ugly motha fucka: she's noteven looking at no useless low-life scuzzy piece of nothing likeyou. She's with me. You got that? You got anything to say about it?
'Cause if you do, I'll kick your ass from here to next Tuesday."I had to step in front of her, "Baby, don't. He's not worth you
getting upset. We' re not even about him."
Even if the wa ters between us hadn't been simmering for weeks,
they were ready to boil overnow.As suddenly as she had raged at him,
Renee yielded to me. She quieted her words, but her eyes echoed myown anger, frustration and longing. I hurried us up Eastern Parkway.
94

I took us to the Botanical Gardens . We found a bench under atree dripping a pink and white cascade of leaves. Renee's face wasdrawn tight, then she broke. "I hate those guys when they say shit
like that. Where are their heads at? Do they really think you'll gorunning up to them and say, 'Yes Daddy, I'm yours?' I wanted tobeat the living daylights out of him for talking to you like that."
I was still astonished from having said "Baby." Had she evenheard it? Did she know how I felt for her? Could she tell from theway I stroked her back, smoothed her forehead, and hugged her as
she wept into the palms of her hands, elbows atop her knobby
knees? She worked with the worst of men every day, why did thisone fool's taunts make my baby cry?
I felt the afternoon breeze bathing my "face, the wind cradlingthe leaves as I sought to soothe Renee, waves of desire surging
through me. She seemed calmer now, her eyes still sad and dewy.
I kissed the soft ebony roses unfurling from her cheeks, her perfectslice of moon brow, the pouting oval of her mouth. And then, I
slipped my tongue between those plumped petals.
Greenwich Village is one place, but Brooklyn is quite another.
Even under cover of the curtain of leaves, we didn't feel safe to beclose, to touch, to kiss and I was streaming, ready to suckle herevery body part.
"Let's take a cab home, to your house." When we got there,
Renee seemed disoriented after closing the door and I was no longer
so swift and sure. She said, "I'll be with you in a minute." Shestopped briefly in the dark living room. It still had the furnishings
her parents had put there in the 50s: the large RCA Victor consolein front of a plastic covered couch, lacy doilies on the arms of potbellied chairs.
I made my way upstairs into Renee's light blue bedroom. The
book shelf lining the far wall held electrical texts. On the floor next
to her bed were old, worn paperbacks by March Hastings, Joan
Ellis, Randy Salem, and newer, worn ones by Jane Rule, Audre
Lorde, Toni Morrison.
I called Mother to tell her I'd be staying the night over. She hesitated a moment, then said, "All right, dear ... Give Renee my love."
It was early evening by then. The way I was feeling, the wholenight wouldn't be long enough, but we could at least begin. Renee
came in and lay down on her bed.

95

"You're not seeing anyone else?" It was more a request than aquestion, and only a shadow of the demand I wanted to put to her.
"Ever since I found out you were back home, I haven't beenable to even look at anyone else," she said, which sounded quite
reasonable to me.
I traced patterns on her hand and told her about meeting Leslie
at Hunter College and going to Gay Activists Alliance meetings
and to Bonnie and Clyde's, then settling in with Leslie in anapartment on East 5th Street. "I suppose I should have cultivatedfriends other than assuming Leslie's, but I just didn't have thepersonality. I took the rest of my acquaintances from the literatureclasses I went to after work.
"Leslie had a broader social network and found she wanted tosee other women and be sexual outside of our relationship. I
couldn't handle that. We had argued the issue for weeks, and when
she confessed she had been sleeping with someone, I lost it andsaid I was moving out.""You truly are your mother's daughter," Renee chuckled.
"And your own woman, too.""Maybe now I could negotiate it better, but what I want is mylover's complete attention. I'm basically a home girl. I expect people
to tell me the truth emotionally. I need that kind of responsibility
towards me.".
Renee nodded, taking it in. She'd been smiling at me throughout,listening with an ear tuned to the ebb and flow of my sensibility. It was
like snuggling with a best friend with our parents gone for theevening. As she caressed me from shoulder to thigh, I felt safe to open
all my doors. I'm embarrassed about the fact that I develop strong
attachments to people I let put their hands on my private parts, thephysical and emotional, but that's just how it works for me.
'Well, while you were in Gay Activists Alliance meetings andgoing to Bonnie and Clyde's, I was keeping to the Brooklyn side of thebridge, going to The Hut and The Outer Limits, being an after-hours
club party-butch. Sometimes, I'd go uptown to the Hilltop or Andre's.
I stayed high and talked trash and couldn't figure what it was allabout. I knew I wanted a wife and to settle down, but I couldn't see
how to have thatandstay high,so I stayed high. And when that started
hurting too much more than it was worth, and I didn't even havemuch say in the matter ... well. I knew I' d better get hel p to change myways or die."96

N ow it was my turn to give silent witness. 1'd only seen Renee
straight and sober, but I could sense it was a big deal and not a small
task for her. Much like me coming back to Brooklyn, this is what
returned her to life. I too had had to live according to a simple, rigid
plan of behavior: Once the pain eased off, awarenesses could comethrough. Even then, it took a while before I could direct my life fromthe inside out and figure what streets would best take me home.
From down the block we could hear the Mr. Softee truck jingle
its seductive call and the children gathering in excitement. Laughter floated in from the street. This wasn't the roar of Manhattan
traffic - trucks, sirens, rush. I could afford to live in Brooklyn.
There was nothing more I wanted to say. I reached for Renee
with my mouth as eager, my body as excited, my heart poured as
open as laughing children, as sweet as ice cream, finally at home ina Brooklyn brownstone.

Stephanie Byrd, Lesbian poet, in Pinkney Park,
Michigan, June 1989
Terri Jewell97

Mev Miller

The Size of the Bed ... Matters
The Single Bed
We were two Venuses ofWillendorf - big, round bellies, luscious
rotund breasts, moon faces with expressive eyes, and ample thighs
supporting soft spherical asses. We both had deep contagious laughs
and husky voices. We held our bodies with pride and strength. You
were Black and I was white and I loved the textures of our naked
skins held close to each other. Our friends saw us as an awe-full sightwhen we were together - which in the end, wasn't very long.
We each only had a single bed. I stayed at your house most of thetime because of the kids. And late at night, after they were finallyasleep, we'd make our way to your bed, a very small bed for such fullsized Amazons. We didn't get much sleep. It was hard to get comfortable. Not that sleep was our objective. We'd lie awake and holdeach other, and whisper and talk and stroke each other, developing
a tender sweetness. We'd hold our arms next to each other andmarvel at the contrasting colors. Our breasts and bellies would foldinto each other in one continuous mass of erotic fleshy fullness.
But we'd have to hold on to each other tightly to prevent fallingout of the bed. Eventually, I saw this to be the way of our relationship- desperately holding on to avoid falling and hurting myself.
Every turn, every breath, every kiss and caress, every movement
carefully calculated and executed became a source of consternation. I couldn't help clinging while you pushed me away, demanding, wanting your space. We were too claustrophobic.
And it became clear. Two well-endowed strong-willed Venuses
should not share a single bed.
The King-Size Bed
I am always puzzled by how much a woman's good looks playinto my attraction toward her. I would like to think of myself as
someone attracted to a woman's self and not only her handsomeness. I suppose it has to do with not understanding how a lesbian
can have sex for the sake of itself without a context of love or
emotional relationship.
98But, oh, how I lusted for you even though I didn't really knowyou. I have such a weakness for middle aging women with grayhair. And you had a marvelously strong Amazon body topped
with a head of short thick silver-gray hair. And your eyes - I don't
remember their color, because they were deep wells of intensity. I
fantasized what it would be like to be held by your strong arms, tofeel you, to taste you - never thinking such a possibility would
occur, but trying to put myself in situations where it might.... I
thought I was in love, though my friends assured me it was lust.
You invited me to your house in the country for dinner. I wasawkward and embarrassed, tripping over my lust, which I tried
unsuccessfully to keep out of the way. Yours was a world I didn't
know very well. Drinking beer and smoking pot, we talked aboutmusicians I didn't know but with whom yot! were enraptured,
about people and places I didn't care about. You talked about theinsecurity of your future and spoke philosophically about who
knows what. I felt lost trying to float above the booze and drugs while
struggling to control my giddiness and rather obvious desire. What
did any of it matter, as long as I could have sex with you?
Then it became far too late and far too far for me to travel home.
Ah, the classic set-up. I had only heard of such things and had neveractually seen one! The distance between us in that bed sobered me. I
laid quietly staring at the ceiling, convinced that my hyperventilation was audible if not vibrational. You rolled closer to me.
"Is this all right?" you asked.
"Yes."
I rolled - in order to be on my left side - but closing the gap
further.
And again you came closer - almost touching.
"Do you have enough room?" you asked.
"Yes, I'm fine.""Would it be alright if I held you?" you asked.
"Yes ... yes, I would like that."
Settled again in a new position. Silent. Waiting. Simultaneously,
by chance, we moved our faces into closer proximity - almost
touching lips.
Finally. A tentative brush transformed into a deep full-mouthedkiss with breath that reeked of booze and smoke. I still remember
the smell of your hair. It was very distinct, as if it contained all theremembered fragrances of the places you had been.
99

But the sex was short. My body too numb to sense or respond.
My expectations much too high to be real, my desire giving way toimpatience, so that I couldn't slow down and take time. It wasquick and unsatisfying. Sex. It is perfectly natural, but not naturally perfect. You were humoring me, doing it because you thought
it was what I wanted. And it was. Only later did I realize that mylust was on the surface - I wanted a gray-haired Amazon withincontext, relationship, mutual interest, respect, and love.
There was a lot of room in that king-sized bed. We returned,
each to our own side, and slept - alone.
The Queen-Size Bed
I realized I was cold and cramped. Like swimming from thebottom of a deep pool, I surfaced enough out of sleep to realize thatyou were huddled close to me with all the covers, again. That's the
disadvantage of being a natural heat source in the winter in yourdouble bed. Before sleeping, we'd tickle and tease over who was on
whose side of the bed and hogging all the covers. It's a regular
game we play, usually ending up with us snuggled together
somewhere in the middle. But as the night gets colder, you inchcloser and closer to me to keep warm in my body heat. For my part,I get too warm and try to inch away. Toward dawn, I'm teeteringon the edge-almost falling out of bed, while you sleep in blissful
warmth. I never got much sleep at your house. The double bed wasjust too small.
We spent several months talking about talking about living
together. Then we started talking about living together. Then we
decided to live together. There were many points to negotiate, but
our major fear was losing ourselves to the other. We're both
independent spirits with our own sets of friends, interests andactivities. We recognized we had the potential for getting mushed
together, but not the desire for it. How were we to maintain our
individualities, our own "space," yet still be intimate? We didn't
want to dominate each other or be dominated . We saw too manyfriends who broke up because each felt she had lost her own
identity. We wanted to be conscious from the start.
In addition to our attitudes and feelings, we realized ourphysical space would have much to do with the outcome. How big
an apartment? Could we afford a house? How many rooms? How
big? How located? Who had the most stuff? Where would it go?
100

What would we buy in common? And most importantly, would
we share a bedroom, and use whose bed? (You had a double
mattress. I had a futon Queen.)
From the outset, we each assumed we'd share a bedroom after all, isn't that a reason for living together? Isn't that what mosteveryone does? Our friends did and they seemed quite content
with it. But then the minority reports started coming in. A strongly
outspoken group advocated separate bedrooms. The position went
something like this: if we each had our own rooms, then we'll have
our own space to get some distance from each other, especially if
we're fighting. We could take turns in each other's beds but always
have the option of sleeping alone. It seemed that they would
snuggle with their lovers, but then each sleep alone. Besides,
wasn't it a heteropatriarchal assumption th9-t lovers needed toshare a bed and bedroom together all the time?
Another friend said, yeah, she unders tood that and, in fact, always
had a separate bedroom from her lovers. But, inevitably, they'd end
up always in one bed - the other slowly becoming a storage area.
So, in the end, it never made much sense.
So we talked about what kind of space we needed . We had
spent a year and a half schlepping across town and it was wearing
on our nerves. On the nights we slept alone, we'd talk on thetelephone before falling asleep, always longing for the intimacy of
touch. The thought of living together and snuggling together on aregular basis was inviting. The thought of snuggling then being on
the verge of sleep only to get up to climb into a cold bed and get
comfortable all over again was not. Neither was the idea of nightly
negotiating whether to be together and in whose bed.
In the end, we found an inexpensive three bedroom house torent. We each have our own room in which to think, meditate,work, read or whatever. After all, alone time while awake proved
to be the priority. We share a sleeping room together.
I am still a rotund Venus and you a very round, smaller version,and oh, how I love you. I cherish the feel of your body next to mine.
You lie with your back to me, fitting your behind into the valley
between my stomach and thighs. I cradle your neck and head on
my arm, my hand able to caress your breast. I kiss your featheryhair, your neck, your cheek. You sigh softly, and move closer to fill
the air-space between us. You are voluptuous, and I delight in the
feel of you. Slowly, intently savoring every sensation. I slide my101

hand over the length of your body, the hills, the valleys, theluxurious curves, your wonderfully rounded belly. It's all very
innocent. I want only to feel you. But soon, you respond with
sensuous moans and rub the soles of your feet on my shins andankles and toes. I suck the back of your neck and gently brush thetops of your nipples. You groan deeply and push closer to me as if
to climb under my skin. You lean to your right so that your breasts
are uncovered by your arm. With only my index finger, I start at theoutside of your breast and slowly, slowly circle around and around,coming ever closer to your nipple. You hold your breath in anticipation until I gently brush my finger across your nipple back andforth and back and forth over and over until your nipple is ahardened pebble, and only then do I take it between my finger andthumb and gently squeeze. Your exhaling moan shivers down myspine causing my own throaty moan of pleasure. I do this all overagain with your other breast, heightening our pleasure. I rub myfingertips down the length of your stomach to the top of yourmound. Again, you move to your right and open your thighs,
hoping for my hand between them. But not yet. I circle up anddown, coming ever closer to your clit. You appreciate this teasing
and start to raise your mound to my hand hoping, hoping, hoping
this time I'll touch you. And finally, I do. I enjoy the feel of softness
when I rub my palm slowly over your fur. Gently I slide my finger
through your sticky wetness and onto your sensitive clit. And I
stroke gently, then steadily, then firmly, until your breath catches
and you orgasm with raucous noise. I love the sound of yourcoming! We kiss and kiss and cling to each other tightly. We holdeach other for quite some time and finally sleep creeps over thehorizon. As it does,we slowly move apart, nestling into a comfortable position on our own sides of the bed. We have enough roomfor ourselves. But we are close, our fingers touching. The queen
bed offers what we need - that is, enough room in our intimacy.
You see ... it's the size of the bed that matters!

102

Morgan Grayce Willow

Scylla and Charybdis
thank you June Jordan & Laurie Andersona nd so the male/ gods
said
at their conference: how
can we keep themfrom loving each otherand cupid
eager / smilingraised his pudgy handand he said:i know i knowtake their bodies
from themteeheehee teeheeii
one of my lovers loved me
rocked me all thru
the night/her body ample
supple and wise
as an earth/ mother / fetish
you might see in any
women's bookstore
then she quit smoking/then she gained weightsoon my lover didn't lovemel couldn't rock mel couldn't takemewanting her heavier
body
anotherof my lovers danced for mel pranced103for me statuesque as a bronze/ tempting
as an athlete strong/ and/lean/ and recovering from bulimia
i told her
she was pretty /she said:
really?
soon
my lover couldn't love mel
though she really teasedmei couldn't touchher /but i shouldwant
her / should come and get
her/should want to wether
but she wouldn't comefor meanother of my lovers let melove her
she let me
hold her/rolled open to me
and oncei was deeply into her
climbing-her-Iadderlike-a-spine
loveing herthen she said:
you must be disappointed in
my breasts
oneof my beautiful lovers
saw
another of mybeautiful lovers
and sheran/hidand she said:

104

how
could you say noto her/could you say
yes
tome
iii
mean/
while
i
feel fat/feel short/feel
pimpled/ feel
mean/
while
i'm not/in shape/loose enough/tightenough/longenough/strong
enoughand i
don't want myloversto see me
nakediv
and sothey held anothermeetingand cupid said:
so,
zing
sting
it worked
teeheeteeheehee

105

Revievvs _______________________________________

Cancer in Two Voices, by Sandra Butler and Barbara
Rosenblum (Spinsters Book Company, P.O. Box 410687, San Francisco, CA 94141, $12.95)
1 in 3: Women with Cancer Confront an Epidemic, editedby Judith Brady (Cleis Press, P.O. Box 8933, Pittsburgh, PA 15221,$10.95 paper, $24.95 cloth)
Cancer as a Women's Issue, edited by Midge Stocker (Third
Side Press, 2250 W. Farragut, Chicago, IL 60625-1802, $10.95)
Even the cover of Cancer in Two Voices is achingly beautiful,with its suggestion of both flowers and blood. Barbara Rosenblum
and Sandra Butler have written an intimate, intelligent and moving narrative of a lesbian couple struggling with cancer.
Barbara was diagnosed with breast cancer in 1985. She andSandra each kept a journal until Barbara's death three years later.
The resulting book is a great love story - about the love of two
women for one another, for family, for community, for ideas, forlife itself. To read it is to partake of that love, and of each woman's
bravery as she struggles to clearly experience and understand allthat happens. Barbara and Sandra's clarity is catching; the days I
was reading this book I felt clearer about my own life.
Cancer is devastating. When it enters your life, you look forsomeone to blame. Even Barbara and Sandra, two politically savvy
women, fell at first into the self-blame so encouraged by ourculture. Barbara blamed herself for relying on assembly line healthcare at her HMO; Sandy also blamed herself for not urging Barbara
to have a private doctor.
Then the HMO admitted it was to blame for Barbara's tardy
diagnosis, which denied her any chance for early detection andtreatment. The HMO settled out of court for close to $300,000. The
money proved to be a mixed blessing. It meant they could travel to
New Zealand, to Florence, to London. It bought freedom fromfinancial worry, gave them time to reflect and write. Barbara could
even buy previously unaffordable luxuries, like green leather
European shoes.
106But it also felt like "blood money." "It rings horribly of a
Faustian pact with the devil. This money in exchange for my life.
$1,000 for every vomit," wrote Barbara. Sandra felt pain over themeaning of the money, more than the cash. Sandra understood
Barbara wanting to leave the money to various important people
in her life. But Sandra also felt less loved and less coupled because
Barbara saw the money as her own, not theirs.
It shook Barbara's sense of reality to live in an unstable body.
"You are bombarded by sensations from within that are notanchored in meaning." Sandra found herself living with Barbara's
body more than her own. She exercised less, gained weight, cut her
hair short when Barbara's fell out from chemotherapy. "It felt
impossible to enjoy or delight in my body- an act of disloyalty."
Both women's passion for understanding shines through on
every page. They wanted to tell their story because it "made us visible
to ourselves as we were living it." Writing gave order and meaning,and even became a kind of lovemaking after Barbara's desire for sex
had gone. Still, I wonder, didn't living this experience with a future
audience in mind ever complicate things? Didn't either of them
just once wake up some morning and think, "I don't want to feel
this feeling, because I'm going to have to put it in the book."?
Barbara wrote that she wanted to live and die in an exemplarymanner, and both authors clearly wrote to teach us all something.
I'm more comfortable with the tone in Cancer as a Women's Issue,
where the authors share their diverse experiences in a spirit that
implies that theirs is but one approach, that the reader's might bedifferent, and that we're all in this together, learning from one
another.
But this is a minor problem; the book is a major gift. The image
that lingers is Sandra's description of Barbara, outdoors, dancing,
her lone breast flapping, astonishing another lesbian couple into
stopping their weekend-long quarrel with her "life force."
The shadow of the AIDS epidemic looms over two recent
anthologies about women and cancer. Cancer has been killing
women - many in their prime - for decades. But working on thefrontlines in AIDS organizations has thrown the politics of illness
into stark relief for many lesbians and other feminists, too. Cancer
used to be a personal tragedy. The connection to feminism seemed107to be only that it robbed us of some of our wisest voices. Now,
cancer itself is becoming an arena of feminism.
While neither of these books focuses exclusively on lesbians, bothhave strong lesbian voices and a clear feminist slant. These are often
absent from the many mainstream books about women and cancer.
Judith Brady's 1 in 3: Women with Cancer Confront an Epidemic
is a collection of essays and poetry that inspire, encourage andempower. The writers - women with cancer - have done theirresearch and looked deeply and honestly at their own experience.
They don't shy away from pain and sadness, instead, they transform them into outrage. 1 in 3 left me ready to go out and dosomething about it all.
Factual essays full of s ta tis tics are juxtaposed with poems lacedwith rage, disbelief and fear. It's powerful and jarring, which isentirely appropriate when discussing cancer.
It's one thing to know, in a general way, that minority womendie sooner after a cancer diagnosis. It's another to read the wrenchingstories of those whose survival is cut short by sloppy health care.
Farmworker Reina Diaz tells of being misdiagnosed for a year while
herbodymelted away fromstomach cancer. Zinna Epperson, a native
American, poisoned by radiation from the Hanford, Washington
nuclear plant, describes being told her miscarriages, prematurebabies, cancer and lupus were due to "nerves." For decades.
Both these women's stories also underscore editor Brady's
overall theme: that 90% of cancers are caused by environmental
toxins. Most cancer is preventable, but the "cancer establishment"- the American Cancer Society, the National Cancer Institute, themedical profession - prefer to hunt for an elusive cure. As Jackie
Winnow says in an excellent essay that previously appeared in
Sinister Wisdom, real prevention would mean changing fundamental social structures.
1 in 3 squarely confronts the victim blaming that occurs evenin the lesbian community - the belief that women with a "cancer
personality" somehow cause their own cancer. With well-researchedscientific information and moving personal testimony, the authors
here debunk this approach. "As long as we believe that we ourselves cause our cancers, then the real perpetrators of our cancer
epidemic are off the hook," writes Brady.

108

In focusing on the social causes of the epidemic, however, I
believe the authors dismiss "changes in personal habits" toocasually. There's good evidence from population studies that a
low-fat, no-meat diet could drastically cut the incidence of breast
cancer, and other types, too. There's no guarantee for any individual woman (because some women in the populations studied
still got cancer) . But cutting the odds could save millions of
women. The medical profession recommends low-fat diets halfheartedly, and often doesn't know how low to go (20% of calories
or less). The cancer establishment defers to the meat and dairy
industries. Cancer activists should educate about low fat diets, justas AIDS activists have educated about safe sex. When lots ofpeople change their personal habits, it can have important socialand political consequences. Just ask the tob-acco industry.
1 in 3 avoids the most common fault of anthologies; it is consistently well-written. So is Cancer as a Women's Issue.
Editor Midge Stocker is less interested in a coherent politicalmessage than in sharing a varied feminist approach to cancer. The
authors don't all agree, which makes the book less focussed than 1 in
3, but also more refreshing. There's a sense here that we still have lots
to figure out, and that it will take thinking from many viewpoints.
There's investigative reporting. Rita Arditti exposes the ovarian cancer-in vitro fertilization connection, using Gilda Radner as
an example. There's fiction . Portia Cornell's touching story tells ofa woman struggling with conflicts over caring for her sister. There
are wonderful personal essays . Naomi Glauberman manages to beboth honest and funny writing about metastatic cancer and her
gradual realization that her support group leader is an emperor
with no clothes. Helen Ramirez Odell ponders the value of being
able to choose among alternative treatments, an option only available to middle-class women with private health insurance. She
decided not to have a mastectomy; la ter, when her cancer returned,
she felt her decision had been wrong. Cancer as a Women's Issue also
overlaps some with 1 in 3, with essays grounded in politics andcalling for activism. One essay (Jackie Winnow's) appears inslightly different form in both books.
I can't imagine a gay man learning he has AIDS then goingaround telling all his friends the astonishing statistics of AIDS in

109his community. We all already know. Yet when lesbians learn weor our lovers have cancer, we immediately begin telling everyone
the surprising numbers we've discovered. 45,000 American women
die each year of breast cancer alone. 175,000 are diagnosed. If 10%
are lesbians, that's 4,500 deaths among us, 17,500 diagnoses. We
live in the midst of an epidemic, but we're not aware of it until it
strikes someone close to us. That's why I recommend all three ofthese books to women who haven't had cancer, even more than tothose who have. Odds are, this is going to be in all of our lives. We'dbetter get educated about it, and fast.
- Judy MacLean

Books Received ______________
About the Books Received List: We list (almost) all the books we getin the mail. Unfortunately, we never have room to review everything
we think should be reviewed. I tend to list books here by books/
authors/presses I think are important (although all books from onepress are listed together), with an emphasis on lesbian-owned presses.
If I've read all or part of a book I may add subjective qualifiers like"read this." While the presence of adjectives can be interpreted as
editorial endorsement, the absence of them only means I'm going by
the publisher's press release. - Elana

Piece of my Heart - Lesbian of Colour Anthology contains exciting workby 60 Canadian and U.S. lesbians - rush to get this collection,
anthologized by Makeda Silvera. 1991, $19.95, Sister Vision Press,
POB 217, Station E, Toronto, Ontario, Canada M6H 1H4.
InVersions - Writing by Dykes, Queers & Lesbians is 24 of ' em writing
about how they have invented their writing selves and how they viewthe contexts in which they write; includes many dykes who havegraced the pages of SW; edited by Betsy Warland. 1991, $15.95, Press
Gang, 603 Powell Street, Vancouver, B.C., Canada V6A 1H2.

110

The Two Mujeres -two MexicanJewish women wrap their minds andlegs around a 14 year age difference, class, family, and scandal to havea compelling, intense relationship in this wonderful, multi-layered
novel by Sara Levi Calder6n, trans. by Gina Kaufer with the author.
1991, $8.95, Aunt Lute Books, POB 410687, SF, CA 94141.
Another Love - an unusually deep detective tale of lesbian life in theaftermath of the Soviet occupation of Hungary in 1956, by Erzsebet
Galg6czi, trans. by Ines Rieder and Felice Newman. 1991, $8.95, Cleis
Press, POB 8933, Pittsburgh, PA 15221.
Rebellion: Essays 1980-1991 - the clear, thoughtful, challenging, honest,
reflective and rebellious writings of Minnie Bruce Pratt can't be highly
recommended enough. 1991, $10.95, Firebrand, 141 The Commons,
Ithaca, NY 14850.
Out In The World: International Lesbian Organizing - a pamphlet withgroup descriptions and suggestions for linking up with lesbians almost
everywhere, compiled by Shelley Anderson. 1991, $4.95, Firebrand.
Cecile - a series of well-written short stories that describe complex
lesbian lives and a long-term relationship, by Ruthann Robson. 1991,$8.95, Firebrand.
Free Ride - a free-wheeling tale of a lesbian rogue on the move by
Marilyn Gayle. 1991, $9.95, Firebrand.
Dykes To Watch Out For - 1992 Calendar will be into April by the time
you read this, maybe you can still find a copy for 1/2 price at yourlocal lesbian bookstore and catch up on the great cartoon lives Alison
Bechdel creates. 1991, $9.95, Firebrand.
Cancer in Two Voices -Sandra Butler and Barbara Rosenblum createda new form of collaborative writing while dealing with Barbara's
cancer and death and their lives together. Reviewed in this issue. 1991,$12.95, Spinsters, POB 410687, SF, CA 94141.
Being Someone-eleven years in the "life," a dyke relationship by Ann
MacLeod. 1991, $9.95, Spinsters.
Love & Memory - a lesbian novel exploring the interconnections oflife by Amy Oleson. 1991, $9.95, Spinsters.
Lesbian/Woman - Twentieth AnniversanJ Edition - the classic, with a
140-page 1991 update by Del Martin & Phyllis Lyon. 1991, $25 (cloth),
Volcano Press, POB 270, Volcano, CA 95689.
Fascination and Other Bar Stories, a funny and hot collection from thesmokey heart of the Montreal bar beat, by Jackie Manthome. 1991,$9.95, Gynergy, Box 2023, Charlottetown, P.E.I., Canada, CIA 7N7.
111

Tide Lines - Stories of Change by Lesbians - 27 stories by mostly
Canadian dykes, where change is a lesbian-fueled engine, edited by
Lee Fleming. 1991, $10.95, Gynergy.
Trimmings - a smail, beautiful jewel of Stein-inspired writing overlaid with African American rhythm by Harryette Mullen. 1991, $7,
Tender Button, POB 1290, Cooper Station, NYC, NY 10276-1290.
In The Game - a long-awaited Black lesbian mystery, set in Chicago,
by Nikki Baker. 1991, $8.95,Naiad,POB 10543, Tallahassee,FL32302.
The Daughters of Artemis - the fourth Caitlin Reece mystery by Lambda
award-winning author Lauren Wright Douglas. 1991, $8.95, Naiad.
Clearwater - an erotic tale of mystery, romance and political intrigue
by Catherine Ennis. 1991, $8.95, Naiad.
To Love Again - in which a lesbian abortion clinic director andstraight nurse face jail and seduction together. 1991, $9.95, Naiad.
Murder is Germane - mystery andad venture, set in Panama, by Karen
Saum. 1991, $8.95, Naiad.
Stranded - beings from another planet inhabit lesbian bodies to stopa fundamentalist/ alien plot to take over the U.S. in Camarin Grae's
seventh novel. 1991, $9.95, Naiad.
Avalon -a Celtic fantasy involving the baby destined to become Ladyof the Lake, by Mary J. Jones. 1991, $9.95, Naiad.
Kiss & Tell - the back cover reads like a dyke Geraldo fantasy in thisbound-for-best-seller potboiler by Robbi Sommer. 1991, $8.95, Naiad.
Still Waters - while trying to heal their relationship at a luxury resort,
our heroines discover a familiar corpse and they're off in this new
Helen Black mystery by Pat Welch. 1991, $8.95, Naiad.
•
The Straight Mind and Other Essays - the first English collection oftheoretical writing by Monique Witting, this is a crucial if difficult
text, one that may literally change your mind. 1992, $12.95, Beacon
Press, 25 Beacon St., Boston, MA 02108.
Grandmother of the Light - A Medicine Woman's Sourcebook - acollection of stories from the na tive peoples of North America, a seriesof sources that feed the mythic hearts of women, by Paula Gunn Allen.
1991, $19.95 (cloth), Beacon.
Double Stitch - Black Women Write About Mothers & Daughters - 48
lesbians and straight women explore this territory in a complex anthology edited by Patricia Bell-Scott, Beverly Guy-Sheftall, Jacqueline
Jones Royster, Janet Sims-Wood, Miriam DeCasta-Willis and Lucie
Fultz. 1991, $19.95 (cloth), Beacon.
112

Gender Shock- Practicing Feminism on Two Continents -a comparison of
how feminists actually change things (or don't) in North America andAustralia, by Hester Eisenstein. 1991, $18.95 (cloth), Beacon.
And the Bridge Is Love - Life Stories - a reconstruction of a Jewish
Depression-era childhood and activist (straight) adult life, by Fay
Moskowitz. 1991, $17.95 (cloth), Beacon.
The Dancing Goddess: Principles of a Matriarchal Aesthetic - German
feminist theorist Heide Gottner-Abendroth envisions a fluid, noncommercial interchange between "art" and "life," trans. by Maureen
T. Krause. 1991, $17.95, Beacon.
Perfect Pitch - Lesbian Feminist Fiction - an intriguing collection of 15
stories, edited by J.E. Hardy. 1991, £5.95, Onlywomen Press, 38 Mt.
Pleasant, London WC1X OAP, England.
Pride Against Prejudice: Transforming Attitudes to Disability -analysis
and activism by Jenny Morris. 1991, £6.95, The Women's Press, 34
Great Sutton St., London EC1 V ODX, England.
Past Due - A Story of Disability, Pregnancy and Birth - what is adisabled woman's right to choose? by Anne Finger. 1991, £6.95, The
Women's Press, England.
What I Love About Lesbian Politics Is Arguing With People I Agree With- a good diversion excursion of cartoons and essays by Kris Kovick.
1991, $7.95, Alyson, 40 Plympton St., Boston, MA 02118.
Leave A Light On For Me-a reprint of Jean Swallow's first novel. 1991,$9.95, Alyson.
Trying Hard to Hear You - a "young adult" novel in which a teenage
theatre group reacts to two gay male members. 1991, $7.95, Alyson.
The Crystal Cage - a sequel to The Crystal Curtain, in which thepsychic detective must take action against another lesbian, by Sandy
Bayer. 1991, $8.95, Alyson.
Looking for Livingstone: An Odyssey of Silence - a Black womon travels
through time, Africa and unnamed lands, in a quest for the "discoverer" of Africa, blending poetry and prose, dream and parable, byMarlene Nourbese Philip. 1991, $10.95, Mercury Press, Box 446,
Stratford, Ontario, Canada N5A 6T3.
The Edge of the World - accomplished short stories on a variety ofstraight familial scenes, by Carol Malyon. 1991, $11.95, Mercury.
Peculiar People: Mormons and Same-Sex Orientation - an anthology
edited by Marybeth Raynes, Ron Schow, Wayne Schow. 1991, $24.95,
Signature Books, Salt Lake City, UT.
113

Women ofInfluence, Women of Vision:A Cross-Generational Study of Leadersand Social Change - a study of power and difference; neither '1esbian"nor "homosexual" appear in the index, by Helen S. Astin and Carole
Leland. 1991, $25.95 (cloth), Jossey-Bass, 330 Sans orne St., SF, CA 94104.
Elizabeth Bishop: The Biography of a Poetry - a deep account of thelesbian poet's life, including previously unpublished poetry andletters, by Lorrie Goldensohn. 1991, $29.95 (cloth), Columbia Univ.
Press, 652 W. 113th St., NYC, NY 10025.
A Lure of Knowledge: Lesbian Sexuality and Theory - an analysis andcritique of the rhetorical use of lesbian sexuality in mainstream andalternative texts and films, by Judith Roof. 1991, $40.00 (cloth), Columbia Univ. Press.
Plotting Women - Gender & Representation in Mexico- asks where thecommon ground exists for feminist theory and Latin American culture, by Jean Franco. 1991, $15, Columbia Univ. Press .

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-------------Contributors' Notes
Cathy Cade has been photographing lesbians and feminists for 21
years. She lives in Oakland with her two sons-not-from-a-previousmarriage.
davida singer: vermont native, born halloween, long residing in
new york city. continue to swim, bike, and lust after country.
poems in numerous magazines including feminist studies, little
magazine, metis, passager, caprice. read my work mostly in months
beginning with A. journalist/ occult keeper. first poetry collection
will be published in late 1992.
Deb Parks-Satterfield, 40, Black, dyke. Lives in Seattle, WA. Is
owned by a pair of "2,000 year old" cats named Bogart and
Xanadu. In the U.S. her work is seen frequently in Evergreen
Chronicles. She has also been published in Colorlines, Sinister Wisdom, Hag Rag, Common Lives/Lesbian Lives and Conditions . In
Vancouver, B.C. you'll find her work in Diversity, a magazine for
Lesbians of Colour. "A Wedding Story" is lovingly dedicated toher life partner Sandrisa Morgan Lewellyn and to all those bravedykes who have tried to reinvent the wheel. P.S.- Thank you Sister

Jewell for your original edit.
Deborah Schwartz is a White Ashkanazi Jewish Middle-class,
Poor, Joyful, Moody, Shy, Writer, Teacher and Lesbian who tries
to everyday partake in a morning prayer that might, could possibly bring the fashionably late Messiah.
Diane Fraser is an urban dyke living in the best part of Boston,
Jamaica Plain. She's a graduate of UMass Boston who earns her
meager living working with wild 6- to 12-year-olds.
Donna Allegra: I was born in Brooklyn, N.Y. and started writing
in a diary when I was 14. For years I wrote in my journals and didn't
know how to tackle making litera ture until I joined Jemima, a Black
lesbian writers' group. I began in poetry and am now moreinterested in short fiction. Sinister Wisdom has published me inissues #12, 20, 32, 43/44.
Elana Dykewomon's 1972 novel, Riverfinger Women, is being republished by Naiad in 1992 with a new Afterword.
Elizabeth Clare: I am a lesbian activist, poet, and essayist, wholives in Ann Arbor, Michigan. I am currently getting my MFA in

115

Creative Writing at Goddard College and surprising myself by
writing sonnets.
Ellen Oppenheimer lives and works in Oakland, CA and appreciates fan mail.
Janet Aalfs: The more I know, the more I don't, contrary to what
I was led to believe growing up in a white, middle class, nuclear
family in the 50s and 60s. My writing has been published in
lesbian/ gay and feminist journals and anthologies. I am head
instructor of Valley Women's Martial Arts. A ravenous lesbian, I
exalt in learning all that I can about the world.
Joanna Kadi is an Arab-Canadian, working-class, able-bodied
lesbian feminist with a BA in women's studies and an MA in feminist
ethics. She is a writer and activist. Currently she is collecting materials
for an anthology of writings by Arab-Canadian and Arab-American
feminists. Thanks to Karen Luks for coining the phrase "the lightest
hour ... " in conversation in December 1986.
Judy Freespirit: I am 55 years old, retired for disability, writing
and living in Berkeley and spending much of my time these days
preparing my novel, "Keeping It In The Family" for publication(hopefully) in 1992.
Juarez Hawkins: lama woman-loving artist of African-American
descent, happily freelancing in Chicago. I am sick of silence, andmy work provides a medium for me to process and channel thescreaming inside of me. I am screaming in response to this country's
nasty little "ism's," and to announce to the world that I am here.
Computer graphics are a natural outgrowth of a dual passion forcomputers and art, and reflect my training in both areas.
Judy MacLean is a freelance writer and editor. She collaborated
with Tish Sommers and Laurie Shields on Women Take Care: The
Consequences of Caregiving in Today's Society. Her writing has
appeared in Lesbian Love Stories Vol2, The Washington Post, OutLook,
The Funny Times and other publications.
Karen Lee Erlichman: Born 7/18/62, Philadelphia, PA.l am a Jewish
lesbian activist, writer and social worker. I have also been living with
CFIDS for6 years. I live in San Francisco with my partner and two cats.
Kate Taylor- I ama white lesbian from rural Vermont, presently
stranded in a city. I am a poet, who loves to work with wood andplay with bikes. My life is finally settling into the proper balance.

116

Lierre Keith has been a radical feminist since she was 16. Her firstnovel, Conditions of War, should be out sometime this year. In her
spare time she destroys pornography, confronts rapists and abusers, and generally foments revolution.
Lorrie Sprecher has published fiction and poetry in various journals, including Common Lives/Lesbian Lives, Feminist Studies andTrivia. Her fiction appears in Lesbian Love Stories Volume 2 andWord of Mouth Volume 2. Her collection of humorous short fiction
about therapy, Anxiety Attack, has just been published by Violet
Ink, and is distributed by the Inland Book Company.
"Lotza Luck" is a name that came around the mountain sevenyears ago. "Hoop Brow" got hung on like a bracelet charm last
week, commemoration of eyebrow piercings? So now the names
are coming around the planet .. . that is more of a pondering thana saying. Saying is saying. Drawing is drawing.
Margaret Blanchard: A twenty-year veteran ofthewomen' s movement in Baltimore, I now live in upstate New York with friends, inan octagon home we built ourselves. Other poetry has been published in Unlacing: Ten Irish-American Women Poets. For nine years
I was an editor of the first national publication of the current
women's movement, Women: A Journal of Liberation.
Mev Miller: I am a fat, radical, lesbian separatist, who sometimes
has disabilities . This is my first attempt at short fiction (I usually
write essays). Living a lesbian existence is vital for me. Currently,
I am helping to organize for lesbian space in my town. I am also agardener, book collector, witch, ASL interpreting student, writer,
musician and activist.
Morgan Grayce Willow (under the patriarchal name, N ancy Weber)
was a Runes collective member in the la te 70s. "Scylla and Charybdis"
is from her recently completed collection, The Yellow Memory Wire
(currently seeking a publisher). The poem formed the core of aperformance presented by L.I.T.A. (Lesbians in the Arts) at alesbian sexuality conference in Minneapolis in March, 1991.
Olga Krause is a poet and musician living in St. Petersburg, Russia.
Her performances and ballads are popular with a mixed audience.
Although she is the most publicly known lesbian artist and does
not deny her sexuality if asked, lesbian themes in her work areveiled and understood only by her gay audience.

117Patricia is a 35-year-old radical lesbian separatist, currently living
and working in Germany. Having rejected my patriarchal surnames, I still haven't found one I like.
Patricia Duncker was born in Jamaica in 1951. She writes fiction
and radical lesbian feminist criticism. Her published work includes"James Miranda Barry: 1795-1865" in The Pied Piper (OnlywomenPress, 1989). She edited the lesbian feminist fiction anthology In andOut of Time (Onlywomen Press, 1990) and is the author of Sisters
and Strangers: Contemporary Feminist Fiction (Blackwells, 1991) andan essay entitled "Reading Genesis" in What Lesbians Do In Books(The Women's Press, 1991). She lives in France and is very proud
to be part of the lesbian community.
Patt Kelly: Currently, I live in Omaha, Nebraska and teach at a
community college (creative writing) in Iowa. I attended the
University of Montana in Missoula and write poetry mostly about
the experiences of the heart of womyn.
Renee Hahn: a 25-year-old working class white lesbian, originallyfrom Ohio. I am a writer and child sexual abuse survivor striving
to develop radical healing by working with other survivors throughthe political lenses of feminism.
Sharon Lim-Hing is writing her thesis on francophone Vietnamese novels and is co-editing an anthology of writings and artwork
by Asian/Pacific lesbians with Anne Mi Ok Bruining.
Sonja Franeta is a writer and translator earning her living as amachinist. In July 1991, she attended the first International Gay andLesbian Symposium and Film Festival in Russia. Besides translatingfrom Russian and Serbo-Croatian, she has collaborated on a joint
bilingual manuscript with Argentine lesbian Ilse Kornreich.
Sudie Rakusin: I am a dyke, Jewish, white, 43, an aries, live in North
Carolina in the woods with my three dog companions; painting,drawing, working hard and playing hard.
Susan Hawthorne: I have edited four anthologies: Difference,
Moments of Desire, The Exploding Frangipani: Lesbian Writing from
Australia and New Zealand and Angels of Power. My fiction, poetry
and criticism have appeared in magazines and anthologies internationally. I am the author of The Falling Woman, and The Language
in My Tongue will be published by Penguin in 1993. I've recently
co-founded a feminist press in Australia called Spinifex Press.

118

Terri Jewell: I am a 37-year-old bulldagger writer working as a fileclerk for the State of Michigan. I have finished editing an anthologyof Black Lesbian fiction and poetry and am completing a compilation of personal essays and photographs for DreadWamen/Lack
Sister, a book about Black women with dreadlocks.
T. Stores: GWF,33 y.o. Born/ raised fundamentalist Southern Baptist
in North Florida; married/divorced/reborn happy lesbian. B.A. /English for U. of Colorado. Have published short stories and poetry
in small journals and have won two prizes for writing. Currently an
M.F.A candidate at Emerson College in Boston, seeking publisher
for soon-to-be-completed novel called Getting to the Point.
Teya Schaffer was widowed on September 7,1991. Jackie Winnow
loved life, women and cats, the words "lesbian" and "feminist," andsocial justice. She liked "I Love Lucy" and "Cheers." She createdthe Women's Cancer Resource Center and insisted that this berecognized not as personal achievement but cooperative effort.
She helped raise a son. She liked coffee . She -119

Announcements and Classified Ads ______PUBLICAnONSPOUCING THE BEDROOM and how we can refuse it by Wages Due
Lesbians examines Section 28, the 1988 British law which prohibits
promoting homosexuality. $4 to WDL, POB 14512, SF, CA 94114.
FRONTIERS: A JOURNAL OF WOMEN'S STUDIES has changed
its address to: Room 2142, Mesa Vista Hall, Univ. of NM, Albuquerque, NM 87131
SHORT FICTION BY WOMEN #1 is available for $6 from Box 1276
Stuyvesant Station, NYC, NY 10009.
MAIZE, A Lesbian Country Magazine. $10 for 4 issues from Word
Weavers, Box 8724, Mpls. MN 55408.
WORD WEAVERS, a Lesbian publisher, offers these classics: Ripening; Dreaming; Awakening; Lesbian Land; Spirited Lesbians. Write forbrochure: Box 8742, Minneapolis, MN 55408
CALLS FOR SUBMISSION

ARAB FEMINISTS: All forms of writing by Arab-American, ArabCanadian, Arab/Middle Eastern women now living in the U.s. or
Canada sought for an anthology to be pub. by Kitchen Table:
Women of Color Press, in order to promote visibility, provide aforum and sustain political activists. All forms. For more info,
SASE to: J. Kadi, POB 7556, Minneapolis, MN 55407.
TAKE BACK THE NIGHT, a multicultural lunar calendar seeks
women visual artists & writers for 1993 calendar. Full Womoon
Productions, POB 1205, Santa Cruz, CA 95061 for guidelines.
ANTHOLOGY OF CONTEMPORARY BLACK WOMEN'S JOURNALS, ed. by Patricia Bell-Scott & Saundra Murray Nettles. For
info, SASE to P. Bell-Scott, Dept. Child & Family Development,
Dawson Hall, 0. of GA, Athens, GA 30602. Deadline: July I, 1992.
North American (US. & Canadian) ASIAN PACIFIC ISLANDERLESBIAN ANTHOLOGY of Creative Writing & Artwork. Queries
and submissions to: Mi Ok Bruining, 2316 Vance St., Bronx, NY
10469-6018. Deadline: June IS, 1992.

120

DOWN TO EARTH: A LESBIAN TRADITION IN GARDENING- why do you garden? All forms, writing and art. SASE to
HerBooks, POB 7467, Santa Cruz, CA 95061 by Aug. I, 1992.
CHILDLESS BY CHOICE: A MULTICULTURAL WOMEN'S ANTHOLOGY - what are the different meanings of this choice forwomen? All forms, writing and art. SASE to HerBooks, POB 7467,
Santa Cruz, CA 95061 by May I , 1992.
Two anthologies edited by Leslea Newman, to be pub. by Crossing
Press: EATING OUR HEARTS OUT: WOMEN AND FOOD, seeks
first person non-fiction narratives. HOWDO I LOVE ME? LETME
COUNT THE WAYS: Writings by Women on Self-Love seeks love
poems by women to themselves. SASE to Leslea Newman, POB
815, Northampton, MA 01061 by June 15, 1992.
Two anthologies - WRITINGS BY WOMEN ON RITUAL ABUSE
and FEMINIST CRITIQUES OF THERAPY. All forms, artwork.
Previously published material okay. Deadline Sept. 1,1992. Send
work or queries to Fighting Words Press, PO Box 4, Northampton,
MA 01061-0004.
RISING TIDE PRESS, a new lesbian publisher, seeks full-length
Lesbian novels. For guidelines, send SASE to: Rising Tide Press, 5
Kivy St., Huntington Station, NY 11746.
PARTNERS ANTHOLOGY: seeking writing/ artwork by lesbian
partners of incest survivors. Send SASE for guidelines: Cynthia
Bechtel, Box 16717, St. Louis, MO 63105. Deadline: June I, 1992.
(AD)VENTURESSALLIE & EILEEN'S PLACE, vacation cabins for women. A safe,
comfortable place for women in the woods, three miles from thebeautifulN orthern California coast. Box 409 Mendocino, CA 95460.
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121

BUSINESSESJANE IRIS DESIGNS, INC.; Empowering Images for Women.
Goddesses, sculptures, pendulums & more. Send $2 (refundable
with order) for NEW CATALOG. PO BOX 608, DEPT SNSTR 91,
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RED RNER, 100% Cotton Menstrual Pads, comfortable, ecological,
economical. Made by Land Dykes. Write for brochure: Red River,Box 130, Serafina, NM 87569.
WOMEN'S COMPUTER LITERACY CENTER - computer competence in 2 days! Write or call them for class schedules: WCLC,
870 Market St. #751, SF, CA 94102 (415) 641-7007.
SUPPORT
SHE - Sister Homelands on Earth has its first two acres - Saguaro
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wimrnin. Money and support services are critical to SHE's survivalwrite to SHE at POB 5285, Tucson, AZ 85703, inc. SASE for reply.

Upcoming Issues of Sinister Wisdom#47 Lesbians of Color: edited entirely by a collective of Lesbiansof Color. Out in August, 1992.
#48 Resistance: How do we Dykes resist, do political work, findways to make the planet a better place for womyn, animals and theearth itself? If we don't go to political meetings and groups, how
can we still contribute to the struggle? What ways besides going todemonstrations can we be politically active? Why have so many
Dykes put emotional! physical! political energy into men with AIDS,
and how do we encourage them to re-focus it on the Dyke community? What ways do our lives - our racial! ethnic and class identities,
whether we are young or old, live in rural or urban areas, are disabledor able-bodied - reflect in our political work? Do we judge
political work by its merit or by the status of those doing the work?
How do we define effective? What have we felt to be effective andencouraging? What are our success stories? Deadline: June I, 1992.
122

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sinister wisdom
Some Current & Back Issues#45 / Lesbians and Class. The first issue edited entirely by poor and working classdykes includes analysis, personal narrative, challenge, poetry, fiction & a graffiti wall.
o Cardea, Blue, Dashu, Marah, Elliott, Lauby, Sorell a, Platt, Courtot, Caspers 0#43 /44-The 15th Anniversary Retrospective. 368 pages, over 90 lesbians' work fromthe second wave . An amazing source collection-inspiring and thought-provoking.
#42 / Lesbian Voices. Our first intentional all-lesbian issue, with work on legal theory,
racism, Israel, hair, surgery, the effects of rape on relatio nships, much more.
o Bogus, Warland, Parks-Satterfield, Negr6n-Muntaner, Seto, Sapphire, Robson 0#41 /Italian-American Women's Issue. Guest edited by Denise Leto & Janet Capone.
o Azpad u, Guido deVries, Tavormina, Capra, fides, Cuomo, Veno, Tornatore 0#40/Special Focus on Friendship. Essays, fiction, editorial discussion transcript.
• de la Pena, Hardy, Svirsky, Gray, Stinson, Dambroff, Mi Ok Bruining, Hauptman 0#37/Emphasis on Lesbian Theory. With work on consumerism, spirituality, politicaltheory, children, racism, anti-Semitism, lesbians in prison.
o Lee, Tallen, Evans, Pratt, Robson, Quinlan, Livia, Hardy, Gray, Green, Justicz 0#36/Special Focus on Surviving Psychiatric Assault/Creating Emotional Well Being
in our Communities. Includes testimony, prose, poetry and essays.
• Hope, Aal, Caicedo, thundercloud, Robson, Sien, Moran, Ward, NiHera, Willcox 0#35 /Special Focus on Passing. Includes work on/by Black, Jewish, Native American,
Latina, Italian, White, disabled, working class, butch, fern lesbians.
o Jewell, Frye, Pratt, Rosales, Bogus, Ruth, Gage, Barrington, Davis, JEB, Romano 0#34/SpeciaI Focus on Lesbian Visions, Fantasy, SciFi. Includes work on Disability,
Separatism, Building and Transformation .
o Katz, Ortiz Taylor, Hoagland, Allegra, Livia, Louise, Rios, Danaan, Marah 0#33/SpeciaI Focus on Wisdom. Lesbians of Color, Non-violence, War Stories, Incest,
Leaving a Will, Assimilation, The Real Fat Womon Poems, Coming to Terms.
• Anzaldua, Ruth, Rich, Chrystos, Kaye/Kantrowitz, Hardy, Gilmore, Brody, Rakusin 0#32/Special Focus on Illness, Death, Mourning, Healing, the Disappeared, Hunting
Season, Dealing with Suicide, Cancer, New Ritual Observances.
o Maia, Allegra, Sears, McDonald, Waters, Hansell, Rosenblum, Butler, Stinson 0#31/Special Focus on Sex and FIction, Coming out in the South, Found Goddesses.
o Smu kler, Blackwomon, Romano, Davenport, Dykewomon, Mc aron 0#28 / Special Focus on Women & Work; Body Image, Size & Eating.
• Klepfisz, Clarke, Heather, Sturgis, Gould , Boucher, Gomez, Sardella, Moran •#27/Special Focus on Girlhood, Sexuality and Violence, Office Work, Navy Dykes,
White Trash, Women of Color/Women in Israel/Women in Lebanon.
• Adnan, Felman, Grahn, Schalet, Bogus, HaMa'avak Touch, Quintanales, Anzaldua •#26/Special Issue: To Go To Berbir by Jill Drew, a book-length journal written by an
American nurse working in Beirut during the 1982 Israeli invasion.
#25 /Butch /Fem in the 50's, Native American Roots of Wh ite Feminism, Haitian,
Palestinian, Puerto Rican Struggles, Jewish Radical Identity, Welfare Life.
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• Arobateau, Segrest, Simpson, Tornes, Addison, justice, Klepfisz, Foley, Crawford 0

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BOOK ORDERS: SINISTER WISDOM BOOKS HAS CLOSED• All orders for The Tribe of Dina: A Jewish Women's Anthology, edited by
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• Irena Klepfisz' collected essays and poetry have been reissued in two
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Were we fast becoming a Lesbian nation of
Lucy and Ethels, Rhoda and Marys, orworst of all, June and Junes, prancing
around in house dresses and pearls waiting
for some fool to walk through the door
saying, "Honey, I'm home!"? I could see it
all now, heart shaped meat loaves andbrains turned to oatmeal.
-Deb Parks-Satterfield

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