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Waiting For Emma

In fact, we’ve always been positive about having another child. We both imagine a daughter: Emma, a real fireball, definite in her opinions and politically precocious. I can even see the birth announcement. It says, “Announcing . . .” in bold type on the cover, then opens up to a color xerox of Eugène Delacroix’s Liberty Leading the People — that painting of a woman who’s marching over the barricades, one breast bared, with a fearless young kid waving his pistols and a dying old man looking up at her in wonder. I know that sounds odd for a card introducing a newborn, but that’s what I see: woman warrior.

At Seven Months

Rituals

Every night Lynn cooks onions for supper: liver and onions, onion soup, onion rings, hot sausage grinders. Every night, amidst the smell of onions, Jerry removes pieces of the kitchen’s blue-flowered wallpaper, exposing patches of green paint and gray paste.

A Perfect Moment

An intuitive decision, a trip to the park, a confluence of yellow

My Campaign Diary

I run for president the same way. Every few weeks, I go to St. Mark’s Church (a half block from my house), mimeograph leaflets, and stick some in my attache case. Whenever it comes up in a conversation that I’m running for president, I take one out.

Great Expectations

Bringing someone back to life, going through fertility treatments, spending more time with family

Whirlwind Romances

An eclipse, a single gardenia and an avocado, a fine blue Cadillac

Out Of Season

Last week while she was in bed with the first bout of morning sickness, she watched the “Donahue” show. The woman he was interviewing, a fleshy redhead who leaned sensuously toward the camera, had just written The Mistress Book.

Birthdays

A waxed floor, a box of chocolates, a first bra

Her Vulva