11 p.m. Don and Timmy and I watch the constant news reports in the living room of Timmy’s Upper East Side apartment. We sit stunned, speechless, needing to be with others as we watch the towers collapse over and over again. I can’t even think who I know who works downtown. My mind is a void. Later I will learn that one of Timmy’s friends was killed in the World Trade Center that day; that, for days afterward, Don would be finding papers in Brooklyn that had floated from the towers.
Hot Tin Roof
Posted inHot Tin Roof
Hot Tin Roof: Rolling In The Deep At Old Man’s Creek
The geriatric van tattooed with faded peace signs sped past golden stacks of Iowa wheat on this sticky September afternoon. Our driver, Ana Mendieta, had the five of us, plus her photography gear and plastic buckets, stuffed in her vehicle for the short drive to Old Man’s Creek near Sharon Center.
Posted inHot Tin Roof
Hot Tin Roof: Forgiveness
Hot Tin Roof is a program to showcase current literary work produced in Iowa City. The series is organized and juried by representatives of three Iowa City-based cultural advocacy organizations: Iowa City UNESCO City of Literature and Little Village magazine, with financial support from M.C. Ginsberg Objects of Art.
Posted inHot Tin Roof
Hot Tin Roof: Air Time
Hot Tin Roof is a program to showcase current literary work produced in Iowa City. The series is organized and juried by representatives of three Iowa City-based cultural advocacy organizations: Iowa City UNESCO City of Literature and Little Village magazine, with financial support from M.C. Ginsberg Objects of Art.
Posted inHot Tin Roof
Hot Tin Roof: Prompt for the Planet
Prompt for the Planet is a call to action sent out by the nation’s first Youth Poet Laureate, Amanda Gorman, to the emerging generation of leaders and innovators. The prompt asks young people to decide what is worth fighting for in response to growing concerns over climate change, poverty, global conflict, health access, education equity and so much more.
Posted inHot Tin Roof
Hot Tin Roof: On Being Ghosted
Hot Tin Roof is a program to showcase current literary work produced in Iowa City. The series is organized and juried by representatives of three Iowa City-based cultural advocacy organizations: Iowa City UNESCO City of Literature and Little Village magazine, with financial support from M.C. Ginsberg Objects of Art.
Posted inHot Tin Roof
Hot Tin Roof: How to Get Rid of Bruises: Seven Easy Tips
Hot Tin Roof is a program to showcase current literary work produced in Iowa City. The series is organized and juried by representatives of three Iowa City-based cultural advocacy organizations: Iowa City UNESCO City of Literature and Little Village magazine, with financial support from M.C. Ginsberg Objects of Art.
Posted inHot Tin Roof
Hot Tin Roof: Self Help through IKEA Furniture Assembly
The dream fills the room when we unpack — the parts — the makings of our soon-to-be kitchen table.I remember reading that IKEA furniture in particular is more self-gratifying than the non-IKEA do-it-yourself-put-it-together furniture because of the self-assembly required.
Posted inHot Tin Roof
Hot Tin Roof: Before Planting
Leave the screams, the unspoken fights — / “I can’t take it all, I ain’t gonna take it all, I don’t want none of it, I just want” — / to roll naked across a gravel road while the dust kicks up and the blood is drawn / like a goddamned roadmap across ass and knees and chest.
Posted inHot Tin Roof
Hot Tin Roof: grows in the garden
Sometimes, when she’s bored,
she goes into the garden, covers herself
with earth and pretends that she is a carrot.
Posted inArts & Entertainment
Hot Tin Roof: Wedding in Galena
We drive down blackjack road, thin and winding, hemmed by the woven trunks of trees and a sheer drop.
“It’s a beautiful town,” he says. “All these trees. The hills. The view.”
“I wonder if that’s why Nate and Matt picked it.”
No house lights. No streetlights. Only one working headlight on Fat Van.
(And it’s quiet. When was the last time we were anywhere quiet?)
Posted inArts & Entertainment, Hot Tin Roof
Hot Tin Roof: Public Service Announcement
Underwires: you’re
wearing them wrong!
You’re wearing the wrong
size the wrong way. For starters,
the band, not the straps, provides
primary support. For second, as any
mammographer knows, your breast tissue
extends halfway under your armpit, and as
the nice lady at La Petite Coquette in Union
Square will tell you, all that should be in your bra.
Grab the underwire under your arm with your near-
est hand while, with the other inside the cup (“May
I?”), pull your breast forward (NOT up!) and then (la
coup de grâce) tug gently on the outer cup edge to
situate. “And you’re in,” she affirms. “Your tits
should salute.” Well, hello there. A swell of
cleavage where never there was. I’m harn-
essed and ready to battle the city streets.
(If you’re now spilling out, go up a
cup size.) But rather than flaunt
my rank among the select few
with salutatory boobs, I here-
by bequeath this sacred
knowledge to you. And for
the record, underwires do
not cause breast cancer.
