‘Skirtless, jumperless, she lies on the floor, her hair settling about her like a silky parachute.’
It’s early evening in the bedroom, the heat of honeysuckled July, a sweet breeze through the sash. Skirtless, jumperless, she lies on the floor, her hair settling about her like a silky parachute. She turns away and laughs, stretching her left arm to a book behind her, just beyond reach, stretchin…
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‘We meet at various points in the great swathes of the past that neither of us were alive to witness.’
Allen Bratton on a daytrip to a castle with his older boyfriend.
‘Listening to three white poets, whom I suspect are academics, talk about the state of poetry.’
Oluwaseun Olayiwola eavesdrops on an older generation.
‘I’d been dubious about his company at first.’
Sarah Moss on watching Shakespeare with her twelve-year-old son.
‘She didn’t trust us because, to her, tenants were like children.’
Kate Zambreno on negotiating with her older landlady.
‘A moment now swallowed in embarrassment, I asked a question only a young person might ask an older one.’
Lynne Tillman on trying to understand what makes a generation.
‘One by one they’re led into the box. They swear their oath. They confirm their name, their employment, why they were where they say they were, what it was they saw.’
‘My hopes weren’t high, even to begin with, so I felt no bitterness when He didn’t reveal Himself’
‘When young, we were impatient with our parents: now we want to atone for our callowness, to take measure of them, to understand which parts of them live on in us.’
It’s early evening in the bedroom, the heat of honeysuckled July, a sweet breeze through...
‘I'd already begun to suspect that sex brought misery or death, and now I knew.’
Lucia Osborne-Crowley on the complexity of navigating sexuality while recovering from sexual abuse.
