Rain of the months and years we had
known each other pressed in, printing
the new car as we left the wedding.
Larkspur, phlox, roses weedy in the
gravel, the stretch of slanted windows,
the meander of spring into summer
in the beanfield. The relief of going
hit in a peculiar way, abreast,
a spreading stain: the rain sloshed
on the windshield. As we went, the church
rose into the brink, and we counted out
the white dresses and the school ties,
the vows. The hillside spiraled,
chestnut, and along the service road
Lady Bird’s florals glistened, so that
even now, speaking in the rain,
we think of her—her little hats,
triangular in the heartland.
Our glance lit on fenceposts, water
towers, the road frayed like a hymnal
ribbon as we followed it, winding
past the resort towns: Shelburne, Barrington,
Tanglewood, the misty profile of Brahms
in the treetops, under the striped tents.
Ahead of us, the rain came in ridges,
whole meadows of water, and the air
was matted: three centuries of water
since the bells pealed out. My shoes
were wet in the dew, waiting
for the ceremony, and now, looking
over towards you, I saw your face
cloudy against the dripping window.
Aisha Sabatini Sloan
Episode 22: “Form and Formlessness”
In an essay specially commissioned for the podcast, Aisha Sabatini Sloan describes rambling around Paris with her father, Lester Sloan, a longtime staff photographer for Newsweek, and a glamorous woman who befriends them. In an excerpt from The Art of Fiction no. 246, Rachel Cusk and Sheila Heti discuss how writing her first novel helped Cusk discover her “shape or identity or essence.” Next, Allan Gurganus’s reading of his story “It Had Wings,” about an arthritic woman who finds a fallen angel in her backyard, is interspersed with a version of the story rendered as a one-woman opera by the composer Bruce Saylor. The episode closes with “Dear Someone,” a poem by Deborah Landau.
Rachel Cusk photo courtesy the author.
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