‘Late June, scorched grass and sprinklers, the sky as if scuffed and beaten. Too hot to work, too lazy to think.’
Late June, scorched grass and sprinklers, the sky as if scuffed and beaten. Too hot to work, too lazy to think, I’ve knocked off early to play tennis. I’m sitting on the edge of the bed, putting on my trainers, when my son crashes in, a raspberry lolly bleeding in his hands, huge breaths and dis…
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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.’
Late June, scorched grass and sprinklers, the sky as if scuffed and beaten. Too hot...
‘I'd already begun to suspect that sex brought misery or death, and now I knew.’
‘Compared to all of you, I’m not the handsomest guy or the smartest, which might’ve caused me all sorts of grief if I was a landlubber. But I spent my life at sea, so I got by.’
