02.23.2008

The Shortest Novel of Them All (by Norman Mailer, an excerpt from The Outlaw Bible of American Poetry)

At first she thought she could kill him three days.
She did nearly. His heart proved nearly unequal to her compliments.
Then she thought it would take three weeks. But he survived.
So she revised her tables and calculated three months.
After three years, he was still alive. So they got married.
Now they’ve been married for thirty years. People speak warmly of them.
They are known as the best marriage in town.
It’s just that their children keep dying.