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The End of an EraAuthor(s): James TateSource: The Iowa Review, Vol. 13, No. 3/4 (Spring, 1982 (1983)), p. 116Published by: University of IowaStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/20155905 .
Accessed: 12/06/2014 19:09
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The End of an Era James T?te
When your address book starts to fall apart
you know it's the end of an era.
When the dead or lost determine your days then it should be decided that this is the end of an era. Buy yourself some new shirts, it can't hurt. Let a
perfect stranger cut your hair, what do you care? The newspapers
can't think up any new headlines. Call it
the end of an era just to get something going, to get people thinking, to at least consider
abandoning the plan. Suddenly it feels like the end of an era, like something you don't
have to say goodbye to, it's just gone. It's not like a pet getting run-over, that's
a specific pain and it will fall into place?
the street, the traffic, the odds. When
an era ends, nobody decides anything, a terrible ooze accumulates, and a private, unspoken nausea takes over. We awake to how wrong
everything has become, our best dishes
mean nothing, and, still alone, we cry:
"I want to break out of the Grief Motel!
I want to kick out the windows of the Grief Motel!"
Life is a muscular, tear-wrenching thing at the end of an era.
116
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