Spectacle: Stories
Page 11
I barely knew my hand from his.
But it was surefire, my technique.
You want me to say soft hands.
You want me to say warm mouth.
You want me to say things into your hair.
You want me to say you’re not a mess.
You want me to say that I’m the mess.
You want me to say you’re not to blame.
You want me to say there is a God.
You want me to say he’s watching you.
You want me to say he will save your soul.
But what if I say you have no soul.
What if I say there is no soul.
What if I say there is only this.
And what if I’m right.
Acknowledgments
I wish to thank Randall Mann, Chris Kamrath, John Edgar Wideman, Noy Holland, Lynne Layton, Ben Lempert, Gary Clark, John D’Agata, Matt McGowan, Carey Shea, Calvin Parker, Harold Meltzer, Matt Van Brink, Kelley Reese, Patti Horvath, Carole Cebalo, Vincent Guerra, Sebastian Currier, James Hannaham, Evan Wiig, Eileen Fung, D. A. Powell, and Ryan Van Meter.
And special thanks to Fiona McCrae, Steve Woodward, Ethan Nosowsky, Katie Dublinski, Erin Kottke, Marisa Atkinson, United States Artists, the Vermont Studio Center, the MacDowell Colony, the Wurlitzer Foundation, Yaddo, the Blue Mountain Center, the NYU Faculty Resource Network, and the University of San Francisco.
The story “Signifier” alludes to Lacan’s and Hegel’s thoughts on desire and recognition.
SUSAN STEINBERG is the author of the short story collections Hydroplane and The End of Free Love. She was the 2010 United States Artists Ziporyn Fellow in Literature. Her stories have appeared in McSweeney’s, Conjunctions, the Gettysburg Review, American Short Fiction, Boulevard, and the Massachusetts Review, and she is the recipient of the Pushcart Prize. She has held residencies at the MacDowell Colony, the Vermont Studio Center, the Wurlitzer Foundation, the Blue Mountain Center, Yaddo, and NYU. She has a BFA in painting from the Maryland Institute College of Art and an MFA in English from the University of Massachusetts, Amherst. She teaches at the University of San Francisco.