steir_0.xml | CONFLUENCE

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               <resp>Editor (2022-2023)</resp>
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               <resp>Editor (2024-Present)</resp>
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               <persName>Anna Marie Wingard</persName>
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               <persName>Olivia Wychock</persName>
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            <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>
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               <address>
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                  <settlement>Lewisburg</settlement>
                  <region>Pennsylvania</region>
                  <postCode>17837</postCode>
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               <licence>Bucknell Heresies Project: Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0
                  International (CC BY-NC 4.0)</licence>
               <licence>Heresies journal: © Heresies Collective</licence>
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               <analytic>
                  <title>Patterns of Communicating and Space Among Women</title>
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                     <publisher>HERESIES: A Feminist Publication on Art and Politics</publisher>
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                           <name>Heresies</name>
                           <postBox>P.O. Boxx 766, Canal Street Station</postBox>
                           <settlement>New York</settlement>
                           <region>New York</region>
                           <postCode>10013</postCode>
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            <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>

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