Document <?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?><?xml-model href="http://www.tei-c.org/release/xml/tei/custom/schema/relaxng/tei_all.rng" type="application/xml" schematypens="http://relaxng.org/ns/structure/1.0"?><?xml-stylesheet type="text/css" href="https://raw.githubusercontent.com/LEAF-VRE/code_snippets/refs/heads/main/CSS/leaf.css"?><TEI xmlns="http://www.tei-c.org/ns/1.0" xmlns:rdf="http://www.w3.org/1999/02/22-rdf-syntax-ns#"> <teiHeader> <fileDesc> <titleStmt> <title>Contributors</title> <author>Collective</author> <respStmt> <persName>Eowyn Andres</persName> <resp>Editor (2024-Present)</resp> </respStmt> <respStmt> <persName>Haley Beardsley</persName> <resp>Editor (2021-2024)</resp> </respStmt> <respStmt> <persName>Lyndon Beier</persName> <resp>Editor (2023-Present)</resp> </respStmt> <respStmt> <persName>Erica Delsandro</persName> <resp>Investigator, editor</resp> </respStmt> <respStmt> <persName>Lucy DiChristina</persName> <resp>Editor (2025-Present)</resp> </respStmt> <respStmt> <persName>Mia DeRoco</persName> <resp>Editor (2023-Present)</resp> </respStmt> <respStmt> <persName>Margaret Hunter</persName> <resp>Editor (2021-2024)</resp> </respStmt> <respStmt> <persName>Diane Jakacki</persName> <resp>Invesigator, encoder</resp> </respStmt> <respStmt> <persName>Sophie McQuaide</persName> <resp>Editor (2021-2023)</resp> </respStmt> <respStmt> <persName>Olivia Martin</persName> <resp>Editor, encoder (2021)</resp> </respStmt> <respStmt> <persName>Zoha Nadeer</persName> <resp>Editor (2022-2023)</resp> </respStmt> <respStmt> <persName>Bri Perea</persName> <resp>Editor (2022-2023)</resp> </respStmt> <respStmt> <persName>Carrie Pirmann</persName> <resp>Editor, encoder (2023-Present)</resp> </respStmt> <respStmt> <persName>Valeria Riley</persName> <resp>Editor (2024-Present)</resp> </respStmt> <respStmt> <persName>Ricky Rodriguez</persName> <resp>Editor (2022-2023)</resp> </respStmt> <respStmt> <persName>Roger Rothman</persName> <resp>Investigator, editor</resp> </respStmt> <respStmt> <persName>Valeria Riley</persName> <resp>Editor (2024-Present)</resp> </respStmt> <respStmt> <persName>Kaitlyn Segreti</persName> <resp>Editor (2021-Present)</resp> </respStmt> <respStmt> <persName>Blythe Senna</persName> <resp>Editor (2025-Present)</resp> </respStmt> <respStmt> <persName>Maggie Smith</persName> <resp>Editor (2021-2024)</resp> </respStmt> <respStmt> <persName>Lily Stein</persName> <resp>Editor (2025-Present)</resp> </respStmt> <respStmt> <persName>Maya Wadhwa</persName> <resp>Editor (2021-2023)</resp> </respStmt> <respStmt> <persName>Kelly Troop</persName> <resp>Editor (2023-Present)</resp> </respStmt> <respStmt> <persName>Lucy Wadswoth</persName> <resp>Editor (2022-Present)</resp> </respStmt> <respStmt> <persName>Anna Marie Wingard</persName> <resp>Editor (2023-Present)</resp> </respStmt> <respStmt> <persName>Olivia Wychock</persName> <resp>Graduate Editor (2024-Present)</resp> </respStmt> <funder>Bucknell University Humanities Center</funder> <funder>Bucknell University Office of Undergraduate Research</funder> <funder>The Mellon Foundation</funder> <funder>National Endowment for the Humanities</funder> </titleStmt> <publicationStmt> <distributor> <name>Bucknell University</name> <address> <street>One Dent Drive</street> <settlement>Lewisburg</settlement> <region>Pennsylvania</region> <postCode>17837</postCode> </address> </distributor> <availability> <licence>Bucknell Heresies Project: Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International (CC BY-NC 4.0)</licence> <licence>Heresies journal: © Heresies Collective</licence> </availability> </publicationStmt> <sourceDesc> <biblStruct> <analytic> <title>Patterns of Communicating and Space Among Women</title> </analytic> <monogr> <imprint> <publisher>HERESIES: A Feminist Publication on Art and Politics</publisher> <pubPlace> <address> <name>Heresies</name> <postBox>P.O. Boxx 766, Canal Street Station</postBox> <settlement>New York</settlement> <region>New York</region> <postCode>10013</postCode> </address> </pubPlace> </imprint> </monogr> </biblStruct> </sourceDesc> </fileDesc> <xenoData><rdf:RDF xmlns:rdf="http://www.w3.org/1999/02/22-rdf-syntax-ns#" xmlns:rdfs="http://www.w3.org/2000/01/rdf-schema#" xmlns:as="http://www.w3.org/ns/activitystreams#" xmlns:cwrc="http://sparql.cwrc.ca/ontologies/cwrc#" xmlns:dc="http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/" xmlns:dcterms="http://purl.org/dc/terms/" xmlns:foaf="http://xmlns.com/foaf/0.1/" xmlns:geo="http://www.geonames.org/ontology#" xmlns:oa="http://www.w3.org/ns/oa#" xmlns:schema="http://schema.org/" xmlns:xsd="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#" xmlns:fabio="https://purl.org/spar/fabio#" xmlns:bf="http://www.openlinksw.com/schemas/bif#" xmlns:cito="https://sparontologies.github.io/cito/current/cito.html#" xmlns:org="http://www.w3.org/ns/org#"/></xenoData></teiHeader> <text> <body> <div> <pb facs="https://leaf.bucknell.edu/sites/default/files/2025-02/heresies02_096.jpg" n="96"/> <head>Two From Short Stories and Love Songs</head> <byline>Pat Steir</byline> <div> <ab><title>Kitchens 1970</title> <lg> <l>My Aunt Beverly came to visit me . </l> <l>I last saw her twenty-two years ago when I was twelve . </l> </lg> <lg> <l>This time she had freshly dyed and set hair . </l> <l>It was glossy red . short . and neatly curled . </l> <l>A friend was with her . her friend's hair was dyed blond . </l> <l>She was tired looking . and not as neat as Beverly . </l> <l>Aunt Beverly said "this is fran ... do you remember her ?</l> <l>I know her since before you were born' . </l> </lg> <lg> <l>They were boyish sixty-year-old women . </l> <l>Reminding me of the working women I see</l> <l>leaving their offices and factories at 5 on winter afternoons . </l> <l>I suppose it is a hard lonely life they have . </l> </lg> <lg> <l>"I have traveled a lot since len died" she said . </l> <l>"I took a cross-country bus trip . </l> <l>Funny . she always called him leonard . when I was a child . </l> <l>when he was alive . </l> </lg> <lg> <l>I remember her well . from the old days . </l> <l>The years when the children were growing up . </l> <l>Her hair was longer then . and darker . she was thin . </l> <l>I remember she thought herself a cross between</l> <l>katharine hepburn and ingrid bergman . </l> </lg> <lg> <l> We were all poor . </l> <l>We lived in four-family wooden-frame buildings . </l> <l>Railroad flats . </l> <l>Beverly’s daughters abby and marta were smart — and beautiful . </l> <l>Her son jeffrey was retarded . </l> <l>Each summer uncle leonard tried to teach jeffrey to count . </l> <l>They spent years in the front bedroom . years of summers . </l> <l>Counting and trying . </l> <l>I feel those summers often . </l> <l>a flavor . a taste . a just missed time . </l> <l>Some days seem pregnant with them . </l> </lg> <lg> <l>It is as though a day from long ago</l> <l>is about to arrive in the midst of a new summer . </l> <l>Once I was sunbathing on a foreign beach . </l> <l>and the heat — the sun —the loneliness of a distant</l> <l>voice brought them back to me . </l> <l>Aunt Beverly and my mother in the kitchen . </l> </lg> <lg> <l>I remember myself a fat child . </l> <l>Sitting in the shade —at the side of the house . </l> <l>"The oldest"— "keeping an eye on the smaller children"</l> </lg> <lg> <l>My mother's and Beverly's voices</l> <l>coming through the open kitchen window . </l> <l>Their voices became part of the air . a hum and a whisper . </l> <l>words barely audible . the clink of ice . </l> <l>All summer they drank iced coffee with milk in it . </l> <l>they sat in their flower-print housedresses . </l> <l>at the white enamel kitchen table . near the window . </l> <l>sometimes — but rarely laughing . </l> <l>endlessly talking about childhood friends . operations . </l> <l>and abortions . deaths . and money . </l> </lg> <lg> <l>while in the hot mud driveway . I watched a red ant .</l> <l>crawl from shadow to shadow . across the Australian Plains</l> </lg></ab> </div> <div> <ab> <title>CONVERSATION 1969</title> <lg> <l>I mourn mortality . </l> <l>my friend came to visit . </l> <l>the evening passed . </l> <l>time wove back and forward again . </l> <l>we spoke about places . </l> <l>the room seemed to become other rooms . </l> <l>i described aroom . a room i never remember . </l> <l>except when i am in it . </l> <l>she described a room . </l> <l>a gift for a gift . </l> </lg> <lg> <l>the conversation became a gigantic sculpture . </l> <l>a transcontinental journey on the queen mary . </l> <l>something rare . </l> <l>we wanted to capture it . the event . in a novel . </l> <l>writing on six pages at once . filming it . </l> <l>writing poetry of poetry on the walls of it . </l> <l>painting pictures in non-existent colors . </l> <l>the memories and the memories of them . </l> </lg> <lg> <l>in the morning she told me of a road sprayed with sunshine . </l> </lg> <lg> <l>i told about a little horse in mexico . he lived inside a fence</l> <l>8 feet in diameter . beneath a banana tree . </l> <l>the girls in the house hung their petticoats</l> <l>on a line that passed above him . </l> <l>all the days i was there . i could see him standing . </l> <l>inside his fence . beside the banana tree . </l> <l>under the petticoats . with a huge erection . </l> <l>cows grazed on water lilies in the pond . just beyond him . </l> <l>only their heads showed . the horse was black . </l> </lg> <lg> <l>she said write it . </l> </lg> <lg> <l>then we ate lunch . </l> <l>when my friend got ready to leave i followed her . </l> <l>through the house . </l> <l>i watched her go down the stairs . </l> <l>i ran inside to the window . </l> <l>i wanted to call to her . but by the time i got the window open .</l> <l>she was already down the street . </l> </lg> <lg> <l>then i phoned another friend . </l> <l>and ate half a box of "Famous Cookie Assortment" cookies . </l> <l>in this way i mourned the nature of time . all partings . </l> <l>and the frail thing that each day is . </l> </lg> <lg> <l>I wonder what it will be like when i get home. she had said . </l> </lg> </ab> </div> </div> </body> <back> <p> Pat Steir lives in New York and makes art and poetry. She is involved with two alternative publishing ventures as well as being a member of the Here- sies Collective. </p> </back> </text> </TEI>