Well, As My Dad Would Say, It

Sometimes You Cry, Susie, Even When Someone You Love Has Been Gone A Long Time.

And There She Was, Alone And Walking Out In The Cornfield While Everyone Else I Cared For Sat Together In One Room. She Would Always Feel Me And Think Of Me. I Could See That, But There Was No Longer Anything I Could Do. Ruth Had Been A Girl Haunted And Now She Would Be A Woman Haunted. First By Accident And Now By Choice. All Of It, The Story Of My Life And Death, Was Hers If She Chose Tot Ell It, Even To One Person At A Time.

I Wake Up Very Early In The Morning. I Like To Start In The Dark, And I Never Work At Night, Because My Brain Is Evaporated By 4 P.m.

I Forgive You," I Said. I Said What I Had To. I Would Die By Pieces To Save Myself From Real Death.

Inside The Snow Globe On My Father's Desk, There Was A Penguin Wearing A Red-and-white-striped Scarf. When I Was Little My Father Would Pull Me Into His Lap And Reach For The Snow Globe. He Would Turn It Over, Letting All The Snow Collect On The Top, Then Quickly Invert It. The Two Of Us Watched The Snow Fall Gently Around The Penguin. The Penguin Was Alone In There, I Thought, And I Worried For Him. When I Told My Father This, He Said, "don't Worry, Susie; He Has A Nice Life. He's Trapped In A Perfect World.