Sister Madly Deeply single work   short story  
Issue Details: First known date: 2017... 2017 Sister Madly Deeply
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'Even as I bring the clippers down towards the soft dome of my head, all I can think about is how badly I do not want to do this.

'I think of Josephine and how tiny she looked, swaddled in mounds of heavy, starched white sheets on her hospital bed. It is the only thing that keeps me from putting the clippers down. Josephine, who as a child, I felt I loved so fiercely that I wanted to squeezed her until her head popped clean off;  who was like a life-sized doll to me and a pain in the bum all at once. Josephine, who I once dreamed had died in a fiery race-car crash, which woke me up screaming, only to remember that neither of us could drive. My tiny, perfect sister, lying bald and infant-like in a bed that was far too big for her, pinned to the spot with the pain of movement like one of Nabokov;s butterflies in a frame.' (Introduction)

Publication Details of Only Known VersionEarliest 2 Known Versions of

  • Appears in:
    y separately published work icon Westerly vol. 62 no. 1 2017 11553429 2017 periodical issue

    'Fay Zwicky, in her journal (NotebookXIII, August 2012), documents the experience of rage - a strange contrast with her lyrical prose and elegant hand: ' I haven't however, forgotten my fury about the illegal Iraq war. It belonged to me and I remember shouting my rage... I can still feel the surge of anger and frustration, no less urgently...' (25141, see ' surprised by in this issue). Zwicky extends her rage to list of social issues and injustices, a litany of various forms of violence in the world that sits at odds with the simplicity of the yellow Spirax notebook. This is the same journal that catches memories, poetry, anecdotes and ponderings, which notes inside its cover the Latinate name of the 'Moon Orchid carried at my wedding' as 'Phalynoxis Orchid'. The passage which records her anger is followed immediately by the memory of a childhood penpal.' (Introduction)

    2017
    pg. 172-179
Last amended 8 Aug 2017 13:09:50
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