The Book of Women

by Dorianne Laux

  Things were not free back then, in 1973, but they were nearly free, cheap but good, easy to find, colorful, abundant. You could leave a quarter in a can on the roadside and take a bunch of flowers set in jam jars, or grab a handful of berries, picked fresh. You could rent a two-bedroom apartment for 50 dollars a month, no extra charge for a dog, or railroad cat. For 15 cents, hand made tortillas were wrapped in thin tin foil with a pat of butter or a wedge of cheese folded in the center. The left headlight was shot, the grill held together with rope and electrical tape. We picked seeds from our teeth with a matchbook cover from the restaurant we worked in nights and weekends until it frayed and lost its edge. I pointed at the cows. Patricia drowsed. We were as close to free as we could get.

  Acknowledgments and Notes

  Copyright © 2012 by Dorianne Laux

  All rights reserved

  ISBN 978-1-937693-27-5 (e-book edition)

  ISBN 978-1-937693-04-6 (print edition)

  Acknowledgments:

  “Music My Rampart,” Pebble Lake Review

  Dolly’s Breasts, American Poetry Review

  Nearly Free, SmokeLong Quarterly

  Woman in a Bar, SmokeLong Quarterly

  Secondhand Coat, BLIP Magazine

  Waitress, BLIP Magazine

  The Year of My Hair, Green Mountains Moving

  Black She-Snake Speaks, MacGuffin

  Note: “Music My Rampart” is a phrase from Edna St. Vincent Millay’s “On Hearing a Symphony of Beethoven.”

  Illustration: “The Shape of Things to Come” by Joshua Flint

  Proofreader: Tim McBride

  Originally printed as a chapbook in an edition limited to 200 copies

  Designed and formatted in Adobe Garamond, please use that typeface (if your device allows this choice) for best viewing.

  For more information and additional titles visit our website

  www.reddragonflypress.org

  This e-book is copyrighted material and cannot be copied, transferred, cut or pasted, distributed, rented, sold, publicly shown or used in any manner except as permitted in writing by the publisher or author, in keeping with the terms under which it was purchased. Any unauthorized distribution or use is prohibited by law.

  Table of Contents

  Red Dragonfly Press E-book Editions

  Waitress

  Woman in a Bar

  She

  Secondhand Coat

  Black She-Snake Speaks

  Menstruation/Menopause

  The Year of My Hair

  Dolly’s Breasts

  “Music My Rampart”

  Nearly Free

  Acknowledgments and Notes