A Brief History of Male Nudes in America by Dianne Nelson, Dianne Nelson Oberhansly Page B

of her lilac water drifted through the State Farm office. I didn’t have to ask her who she had been talking to.
    Jenner is one thing; he’s in the category of fleas and ticks. Dixon is another. If he had been in Vietnam, as the story goes, I’m sure he would have been a hero. He would have somehow saved a child or woman in that junkyard jungle or at a point when everything was blown bare he would have stooped down and cradled a man’s cantalouped head in a dying moment.
    Dixon left me with all these what-if’s, and for the most part, I’ll warn you, brothers are like that. They’ll live and laugh and make it so dreams won’t come near your house, won’t even park on your street.

Simple Yellow Cloth
    M y eyes open and quickly the water of my sleep clears. It’s Thursday night. At first I’m angry because it’s past one and I have to go to work the next day. Daria is out there in the hallway and she’s humming something that I can’t name, and maybe it’s because I’ve just been awakened suddenly, but the vague familiarity of that song is driving me crazy. There’s a formula for remembering things; it’s like walking backwards. It’s based on the premise that every movement and thought is connected, and that by being methodical we can find anything: our shoes, our keys, our very lives. At night, however, I am not prone to reason or formula, though if there were an easy way to get my daughter back into bed right now, I’d use it.
    â€œDaria,” I call, and I know she hears me but she doesn’t answer, which is a kind of formula itself: a tiny fist that opens with nothing in it. I move to the other side of the bed and sit up. From there, I can see her sitting by the night light, her legs crossed, her arms folded, awinter child who is completely of my own making. Not that I brag about it. It’s something I usually keep to myself. And mind you, it has no religious significance. Daria is a child created purely from my own desire, the repetition of my dreams, and the leftover Christmas candles I burned every night. Not magic, but will.
    Don’t misunderstand. I like men. I like how they puff their cheeks out when they shave, and how they walk, and how they are really unable to lie effectively. In a given room on a given night I can turn and be totally undone by the sight of a man as he reaches for a drink. For me, the line that his arm makes as he reaches out is the very line between all passion and restraint. I’ve been in love twice and either of those men could have been Daria’s father, but neither is.
    â€œDaria,” I call again, and this time she looks up, and I swear, being childless was a curse. The first time I held her, there was a stone thrown into a pool and I knelt in the cattail and reeds, alive, attentive. Between us, a life exists on its own, something with heart and claws, a thing still kneeling at the pool. “Please go back to bed,” I tell her, at which point she increases the volume of her song and turns away from me. That’s what she’s like. That’s how calm and undisturbed she is in the middle of the night. It makes me flinch a little, for my daughter in the hallway has a voice that unfolds like paper, words that make sense only because she says them with such confidence. I’m sleepy and yet I marvel at her.
    Don’t think this has all been a joy, though. My pregnancy was long and troublesome, which I attribute to the fact that Daria’s conception was a bit out of the ordinary. For over two months I worked at it. The concentration it took was intense and I started losing weight. My mother would come by and ask what was up, I looked so pale, was that jerk David bothering me again?
    I had to think of objects repeatedly, things that have meaning: Chopin’s back at the piano as the rain slowly destroyed the midsummer holiday. The glow-in-the-dark stars I pasted on my