STORIES
Don Zacharia
(THE NOTE)
Ten days after
J
died I opened HER drawer. It was filled
with scraps of her life: old report cards, birth announcements, a
clipping about the Swiacki catch that beat Army (she used to date
him), matchbooks and ticket stubs and some foreign coins, a letter
from Radcliffe's admissions office saying that she had been put on
the waiting list (she never made it and never forgave them), three
cigarettes, some letters I had written her, a picture of a young girl
I didn't know, a picture of her mother that was cut down the
middle, some poetry that she had written with her right hand, a
dunning letter from Lord
&
Taylor, and the following note that
she had written in longhand, undated and unsigned:
In this whole world I love and have
loved the following people in this order
in diminishing quantity :
my husband
my children (in almost equal amts.)
my mother
my brother
adlai stevenson
i can't think of anyone else.
(WAR STORIES)
With her head on my stomach, she is drawing circles around
my belly button. I would like her to stop but say nothing. I gaze
