helen rubinstein

Tricia Park - "To My Imaginary Unborn Child"

Hello, baby girl. 

I don’t know why I assume you’ll be a girl. Part of it might be because I’m a girl and I have things to tell you, things I wish my mother had told me. And also because the idea of a being with a penis being born of my body is so entirely confounding that my meager imagination cannot contain it. Hence, in my mind, you are a girl.

(...)

Wayne Sapp - "New Year's Eve"

Open Letter
Written to Jimmy Dale Still, of Bonaparte, Iowa
Killed in Action near Song Be, Viet Nam
31 December 1969

Jim,

It’s been forty seven years now you’ve been gone.  On New Year’s Eve, for Christ sake.   You could have picked a better day.  Explaining how you managed to die on that particular day must have been embarrassing for someone along the chain of command.  But that “truce” we were observing was apparently no more genuine than the reasoning for the war.  And no, I still haven’t figured out what that was either.

(...)

Shelia Baker - "President Fluffernutter"

January 20th

Sir President of the United Protectorates,

Today, I watched the decennial celebrations of your reign broadcast on every TV channel, radio station, and Webcast, and I was flooded with memories of you from before the Great Change. Do you remember that time? Do you remember me? Perhaps not, perhaps I am no more than a ghost to you. That is understandable. You have so many supplicants whimpering before you, vying for the measliest drops of your attention. You have so much responsibility now, perhaps too much. For that I am sorry even though I am the Architect of the Great Change that left you with no choice but to take control.