Poetry & Fiction: A Play
SOMMER BROWNING
I don’t think it’s working.
SOMMER throws her arms in the air. Her left elbow hits the mantle and knocks DONALD’s mother’s urn to the carpet. The lid falls off, ashes scatter everywhere.
DONALD BARTHELME
waiting for his mother to dissipate
What’s not working?
DONALD picks up an Xacto knife and absentmindedly carves into SOMMER’s painting “Still Life with Mayo Clinic,” until it is in shreds.
SOMMER BROWNING
This relationship.
SOMMER pours a glass of water onto the surge protector into which DONALD’s computer is plugged. Sparks fly out.
DONALD BARTHELME
How can you say that?
DONALD exhales audibly. He crosses the room and wrenches six feet of coaxial cable from the wall and weaves it into a noose.
SOMMER BROWNING
It’s obvious to me.
SOMMER makes a quick, axe-like movement with her arm and halves the fichus in the center of the room.
DONALD BARTHELME
When did you decide this? Was it Tuesday? Have you been thinking this since that stupid Tuesday?
DONALD saws off three of the four legs of the dining room table.
SOMMER BROWNING
Today is Tuesday.
SOMMER runs headfirst into the decorative, gas fireplace.
Romantic Relationships: A Play
YOU
Alcoholometric.
ME
Caricaceae.
YOU
Sphigmometer.
ME
Pistolade.
YOU
Quadricornous.
ME
Romaunt.
YOU
Silicited.
ME
Pendulosity.
YOU
Videlicet.
ME
Abiogenist.
YOU
Perioeligci.
ME
Verbaryunx.
Thank You
Thank you, Moms Mabley.
Thank you, Moms Mabley and Phyllis Diller.
Thank you, Moms Mabley, who ran away at 14 to join a vaudeville troupe, and Phyllis Diller and Joan Rivers.
Thank you, Moms Mabley and Phyllis Diller, who started doing standup at 37, and Joan Rivers and Carol Burnett.
Thank you, Moms Mabley, who came out at 27 in 1921, and Phyllis Diller and Joan Rivers, who kept a note from Lenny Bruce that said, They’re wrong, you’re right, in her bra for years, and Carol Burnett.
Thank you, Moms Mabley, who came out at 27 in 1921, and Phyllis Diller and Joan Rivers, who bombed every night for two years, and Carol Burnett, who said, There’s laughter in everything.
Thank you, Moms Mabley and Phyllis Diller, who started doing standup at 37, and Joan Rivers and Carol Burnett, who said, There’s laughter in everything, and Bea Arthur.
Thank you, Moms Mabley and Phyllis Diller, who started doing standup at 37, and Joan Rivers, who claims she was the first female host of the Tonight Show, but so does Florence Henderson, Phyllis Newman, and Della Reese, and who really cares anyway, and Carol Burnett and Bea Arthur, whose TV character, Maude, chose to get an abortion at age 47 in 1972.
Thank you, Moms Mabley, who gave birth to six people, and Phyllis Diller, who gave birth to five people, and Joan Rivers, who gave birth to one person, and Carol Burnett, who gave birth to three people, and Bea Arthur, who mothered two people.
Thank you.
(previously published in Brooklyn Rail)
