Brendan Constantine
“Upstairs Beloved was dancing…”
I knew a man who liked to read novels from the middle. When he got a new book, which was every few days, he’d use his thumbs to cut the pages like a deck of cards. I once asked what you’d ask—though, probably not as nice—and he responded, “It makes it more real, more like life.” I was stunned. “Tell me,” he said, “Did you know what the hell was going on when your story began?” I started to say that was very different, but he shut me down with a shrug. “Whatever,” he said flatly, “Some day you really must tell me how you made such informed decisions all your life, particularly the career in poetry.” He had me there. I took down Shirley Jackson’s ‘The Haunting of Hill House,’ cracked it dead center. It read, “It’s like waiting in a dentist’s office, Eleanor thought…” I had to agree. It certainly was, Eleanor. Next I grabbed Eiji Yoshikawa’s ‘Taiko,’ and got, “Can you be determined to seek life in the midst of death?” I thought that’s what I was doing. The illusion persisted as I grabbed Morrison and Melville and then vanished halfway through a book I can’t name. I went to toss it at him, playfully, but he’d gone. Indeed, the whole bookstore was empty. I walked outside and looked up the street. It was also deserted, except for a woman wearing a doctor’s mask and walking quickly. “This way,” she said as she passed, “We’re supposed to go this way.”
—Submitted on 07/29/2020
Brendan Constantine is the author, most recently, of Dementia, My Darling (Red Hen Press, 2016) and Bouncy Bounce (Blue Horse Press, 2018). His work has appeared in Best American Poetry, Poem-A-Day, Prairie Schooner, Virginia Quarterly, Ploughshares, and other journals. He has received support and commissions from MOCA, the Getty Museum, James Irvine Foundation, and the National Endowment for the Arts. He teaches creative writing at the Windward School in Los Angeles.
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