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One night during this time my mother started asking me questions, out of the blue, about William Faulkner. She was taking a night-school course and wanted to write about the Nobel laureate from her hometown, New Albany. Why Faulkner, I asked, of all the writers in the world to care about? Why not Richard Wright, James Baldwin or Zora Neale Hurston? “We’re kin to some Faulkners,” she said. I laughed out loud and informed her that this Faulkner was white. My mother smiled and said, “So?”

In the locker room we unhooked our bras, hoping

shower steam kept us invisible,

but our souls showed, our prepubescent fuzz.

Stockings hung from shower rods like biblical snakes.

Who would learn first? we wondered, and drew breasts

in goofy loops until Sister Angelica banged

her ruler, and we printed the same confession

a hundred times, her shadow crossing

our spiral notebooks, her eyes like old

spiders. Ginnie learned and got a heart-shaped

locket, then a shotgun wedding ring.

Heather gave birth so often she forgot,

she said, what caused it. Becky’s womb was lost

in an abortionist’s garage. We said good-bye

in the Immaculate Conception parking lot.

Still, nuns click their beads in memory of us,

how we strolled, arms linked, singing,

into the world of women where all deaths begin.

He watched the sky and thought of all the fires the world had ever seen, fires from wars, fires from bombs. So much smoke. Where has it all gone? New smoke curled beneath wisps of old, drifting ever higher, higher. Where does it all go? He inhaled deeply and his insides burned, and Vernon knew all that smoke was now just the air we breathe.

1. Boy, don’t let a shadow in you, I never want to see the devil in your eyes, a traceable line of your daddy’s.

2. If you dream about fish or a river, somebody’s pregnant, we need the water more than it needs us.

3. Dream about snakes, you haven’t been living right, wash your hands of it.

4. They’re shooting boys who look like you. You know my number, use it, keep all your blood.

5. Stay

6. Alive.

My father believes that the United States is destined one day to be engulfed in a socialist revolution. All revolutions are bloody, he says, but this one will be the bloodiest of them all. The working class—which includes me—will at some point in the not-so-distant future decide to put down the tools of our trade, pour into the streets, beat the police into submission, take over the means of production, and usher in a new epoch—the final epoch—of peace and equality. This revolution is not only inevitable, it is imminent. It is not only imminent, it is quite imminent. And when the time comes, my father will lead it.