Whistle-pig

 

July 6, 2021

Languid summer day. 

Cut out a mimosa that was crowding out its neighbors, Cut out a gigantic vine– stem thick as my fist-- that rode the crown of bamboo and was just touching my beloved tulip. If it had just not touched the tulip. Already it droops over the tops of surrounding trees like melting wax. 

K announced that she wants to put The Frankenstein Rubrics on Magnetic’s 2022 schedule. I spend two days, early in the morning till the cool of afternoon, rewriting so I can stand to see it on the stage. It was a good seed badly developed. I hope I whittled away the superfluities and grew the seed. It is the nearest I come now to the sort of plays they like, rollicking and episodic and witty enough for someone to be laughing every few pages. It may be the last thing they ever do. In writing it I deliberately wrote down, hoping for a popular victory.  

Announced as a finalist for the Guy Own Prize– which I’d been applying to for thirty years– but when I investigated I saw that the poem, “Certain Things.” had already been published. Twice. Once in “Best Poetry of “ whatever year it was. Of course it would be THAT poem. Feeling sad and foolish and inattentive.

Bit an unripe pear from my bear-attacked pear tree, hoping, between the bears and the whistle-pigs, to get a taste of my own. Took one bite and left the rest for the whistle-pig.