I drifted into Kate Zambreno’s writing by way of a forward she wrote for The Easy Life by Marguerite Duras, a sumptuously poetic novel about trauma and its sequalae of dissociation, depersonalization, and fragmentation of time. Zambreno’s novel Drifts details a writer’s (herself) procrastination in completing a novel for a publishing deadline. Her writer’s block is understandable as she has assigned herself the audacious task of inventing a style that has never been done. This involves writing “fragments”, i.e.scribblings on drifts of sticky notes. The result is a series of brief chapters strung together to form a narrative in the genre of autobiographical fiction. I enjoyed her incisive observations, especially a darkly funny description of teaching as an adjunct instructor, and asides about Rainer Maria Rilke’s struggles with productivity. For me, the symbolism of pregnancy and birthing a novel was a little too obvious, and as a novel didn’t quite escape the self-conscious gaze of the author herself enough to soar as a literary form on its own wings. Still, an entertaining read. And if you haven’t read Margeurite Duras, aim to make her a part of your life experience.
Author: dianam
She was so tiny and immaculate. She walked on your shoulders, on your back, on your buttocks and your thighs. Afterward she did extra. And you paid extra. I treated her very nicely you said. I wished she would take off her socks and walk on my balls until they hurt you said. And tweak my nipples with her toes. She was so tiny and you wanted to hug her and take off her clothes, too. You would use a condom and then you would take her to a fancy restaurant, the same one you took me with a view of the city. You would ask her earnestly about herself. You wanted her to know that you loved her. You wanted her to share the privilege, too.
no sex phone sex or excess
you slip back and forth a threshold
i cannot cross
i commune with projections
and fantasies of corruption
my reality shifts
between jello and concrete
i cannot feel you
except when we touch
safely spooned
the language our bodies know
when chimeras get our tongues
She would turn the key in the lock to her fourth floor apartment. She would step out of her shoes. She would draw close the curtains on the lights of the street. She would reheat the pizza left on a porcelain plate on the kitchen table. She would fill the coffee maker for the next morning. She would tiptoe past the room where her mother-in-law was sleeping. She would pick up her child and smell the dampness of sleeping breath. She would take off her socks. She would take off her clothes. She would thankfully slide between cotton sheets into the warmth of her husband’s encircling arms. They would whisper and secretly laugh at a private joke.
We would strain to touch one another across the distance of a phone line.
Go.
You urged me.
It was an absurdity. Had he seen you leave the cafe last night with the girl? Swarthy in white gauze with bare feet and unshaved armpits, the kind of girl that makes you swoon. She was wearing the delicate chain you secured to her ankle. Was I being played? That first day I noticed his faded corduroys, the color of waves and seaweed. He sat alone at the far edge of the terrace sipping coffee, a newcomer with an aura of having been on this island forever. We speculated. I thought he might be returning after a long time, perhaps a widower searching for directions in the past. You pipe-dreamed that he owned a yacht, that he would invite us aboard for a week of island hopping. You, the positivist, the one most likely to make things real tended to be the better guesser. People wanted to be near you, as did I.
He asked about you. He took me below to the cabin and handed me a shimmering dress. Put it on. A small table on the deck was set with a fine linen cloth, its edges lifting in a subtle breeze. His silhouette against the silver sea lit a candle. I want to see you. My figure in sheer silk exposed by slanting fire from the setting sun. We ate buttered sole. We sipped cognac. His lips were slender and taut and the fine lines at the corner of his eyes grew misty with tenderness. I submitted each detail to memory.
the silver sea
you tell me
you’re falling in love
it might mean
i’m not for you
in that way
you could do so much better
i’ve always known
i still love you and what we are
i give you a way
an eternal horizon
The next afternoon while we fucked you recounted the dampness, the odors, the slime, the crevices and the screams of the earth. Later I described to you the colors of the sun refracted in crystalline glass.
You were the same person.
Chichen Itza
we slipped through a chain-link fence
as the bus sped off up a tunnel of night
one floodlight spliced the dark
a dog barked sharp
there was no going back
we crossed into woods beyond
startled awake, or was it a dream
tap tapping rain, tropical sweat
hunted prey on the ground
the dog, peering down
the dog,
the dog.
no questions asked
leading us astray
over damp silent grass
on invisible string we followed the dog
to a looming ladder of stone
into a void of sky
at the top the dog disappeared
we were held captive
ravished
speechless
spreadeagled before dawn
until dark drained away like blood dried cold
a symphonic mist rose
to purify the day
hours later, concealed in the trees
we woke again
emerging as tourists,
demigods in disguise
Diana Milia, 2023
Vermut Ataman/Passage du Commerce
bitter honey on the rocks
a fire in my place
Balthus pulls back the curtain
he was fourteen and i was ten
(if only i could stay this age forever)
adrift, on a sea of ice in suburbia
what the hell, Siberia
slipping into virtual passages
virginal commerce, shrouded side doors
a stage, in development
a drama, a dream, perhaps
a Freudian interpretation,
child’s play, a simulacrum, or a (mere)
fantasy?
Pattern Recognition
Scratched by sunset claws
her face dissolves in winter clay
Scales drop desiccated lashes
Cliffs threadbare, roots exposed to sky
Sun-withered, kelp drooping on old logs
No child cartwheels across that expanse
Different gulls lean against the wind
On the same trajectory
where my mother’s ashes swept away
I slowly fade in her wake
Diana Milia, 2022
Earl Grey’s Jewels
Fetish languages
Tangled in lines of leaden blue
Secretly suspended in ice cube rooms
Enthralled in lures and holding firm
What do you call it, say its name
Write it in skin
Let it sink in
Upside down falling inside
If I let go, maybe
I can touch the bottom with my toes
Diana Milia, 2021
Earth and Sky
Some days the real is transposed
Zeus cloud herder possessed by nature
Lost horizons, a single notion
Sky cult meets chthonic rhythms upriver
Diana Milia, 2021
Nature
I have no words
to say you inspired
You are the first and the last, and
all words in between
You that wrote me into this world
Diana Milia, 2021
Subdued Bliss
Writhing mass in the grass
Sinister sirens
Silvery silken threads coiled in a lie
It wasn’t what you wanted to say, but
it can wait
Lie in wait
Unwinding tension
Passion flowers, a visiting bumblebee
Soft sensation spreads and
It doesn’t hurt any more
to say yes, and no more
Diana Milia, 2020