The Drunken Boat

The Drunken Boat

As I was going down impassive Rivers,I no longer felt myself guided by haulers:Yelping redskins had taken them as targetsAnd had nailed them naked to colored stakes. I was indifferent to all crews,The bearer of Flemish wheat or English cottonsWhen with my haulers this...
The Time of Our Singing

The Time of Our Singing

By the time the train reaches his destination, the child owns it. Charmed strangers wish him well when he gets off at a tiny Delta town called Money. He steps off the platform into a crowd of boys, his instant friends. He appears to them as another species, a creature...
The Debutante

The Debutante

When I was a debutante I often went to the zoological garden. I went so often that I was better acquainted with animals than with the young girls of my age. It was to escape from the world that I found myself each day at the zoo. The beast I knew best was a young...
Never Let Me Go

Never Let Me Go

Anyway, the point is, there was a gap in Miss Emily’s calendar collection: none of them had a single picture of Norfolk. We had these same lectures repeated a number of times, and I’d always wonder if this time she’d found a picture of Norfolk, but it was always the...
In the Heart of the Heart of the Country

In the Heart of the Heart of the Country

Icicles Then another thing I do is I always draw a picture of the house, a simple floor plan. Take this away with you, I say, it’ll help you remember; and let me tell you, they’re grateful. And another thing I always do is I always… but Glick is not listening, he is...
Lonesome Dove

Lonesome Dove

The springhouse was a little lumpy adobe building, so cool on the inside that Augustus would have been tempted to live in it had it not been for its popularity with black widows, yellow jackets and centipedes. When he opened the door he didn’t immediately see any...