CLOAK/2.6 |
| Senator Que Isaye, only son of a Guyanese Hindu woman whose girlhood dream was to become an American civil service employee. |
| The home puja room, the wall of class pictures in columnar rows, and in every table cell a flag. No mail order mother mine. |
| A fiercely serious woman and a smart dresser by nature, fastidious, punctual—I imagine her sitting straight-backed among the low rows of slouched and slappy children, the only one attentive to the wailing newsreel projections that pitch like epileptics on the canvas wall |
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America at Work the workbound civil servants fill the wide sidewalks with their long perfect ranks and identical handbags— observe the unearthly grandeur and cleanliness of their surroundings— great doorways admit them, they pass from a glow to a gleam— they fill the great buildings, assembling for industry, there in the inner sanctum of civilization— the infinite power unleashed when they cross their legs and launch into another round of synchronized touch typing. And yes, abundant food, abundant shoes, abundant aspirin. |
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She tells us: We feed ourselves well. This is true, Kashmir or Calgary, we feed ourselves well, and it shows in our skins, it shows in our eyes. We do not neglect many opportunities to eat sweets, this is true, but sweets are something we cannot resist and eating sweets is part of feeding well. I am reminded of my childhood and of the heaping plates of sweets awaiting me throughout my childhood. One entered any kitchen to the smell of baking. This is lost now. |