On reading Marianne Boruch during COVID-19
“Never childhood to a child,” Marianne Boruch says, and I think of my daughter when she’s sad, how she wanders around the front yard with her hands in the pockets of her coat. The distance between myself at the kitchen window and her out in the yard. Never childhood to a child. Going to the door and calling out will only annoy her. And yet, she will allow herself to be watched—she knows I’m watching—so long as I make no attempt to close the distance.
Peter Orner’s most recent book is Maggie Brown & Others. Read his short story, “Ineffectual Tribute to Len,” in our Spring 2019 issue.