Lily Hoang

TRADING WOMEN – I The woman down the hall was never a prostitute, although there were weeks that passed when she was so hungry that if the offer had presented itself, she surely would have traded her body for warmth and just one single piece of bread, granted of course, that it was a very good piece of crusty bread.           WOMEN & MEMORY – III Although the woman down the hall is not old, she forgets everything. Yesterday, she left her glasses in the foyer and unable to see, tumbled down two flights of stairs. She broke nearly six bones. Two weeks ago, she did not turn off her oven and her entire kitchen was ablaze. Then, she forgot the number to the fire department so she called her pediatrician who promptly came to her rescue, although there was little he could do to salvage the wreck of her apartment. We ask the woman down the hall why her memory is so shotty. She says, “It is the way it needs to be. It is simply the way it needs to be.” We ask her what she means. She says, “Sometimes, it is better this way.” Then, she turns and retreats into the black hole that is her home.           WOMEN & DESIRE – II The woman down the hall is desirous. She has the appearance of all women who are at once desirous and unfulfilled. Her skin is persistently blotched with flushed hives and her pants are so tight that she moans when she walks. Usually, she is a soft woman. She speaks and eats without opening her mouth. Every movement is delicate and graceful. She is a fallen operatic heroine. But the woman down the hall changes twice a year. She becomes a woman who desires desire for recreation. This woman who is generally subdued and generous, for these few days every six months is excitable and aggressive. Her accelerated speech is an extended onomatopoeia. Her gestures knock large abrasions into the wall. And her sex stinks of daffodils and pumpkin spice. It is a mixture she alone has created to catch a suitable fix. It is a technique that never fails. For centuries, the woman down the hall has been desirous, and for centuries, she has been fulfilled. She is beautiful in her satisfaction.           WOMEN & SIGNS – II The woman down the hall doesn’t have any wrinkles. She’s older than this very building, and the woman doesn’t have a single wrinkle. Her hair is the same buoyant blonde it was when she was seventeen. Her stomach is lined with muscular ripple. She’s a total babe, and we all wish she would stay like this forever.           THIN WOMEN – I The woman down the hall is a piece of silk. Rather than walk, she flutters in variable patterns. When there is wind, her bones become fluid and she stretches. Often, when we seek her most, she is difficult to find. We look for slight shifts in sunlight and shadow, and there, right there, we see the arc of her back, and then, just like that, she has sifted away again.       - - - - - -

Lily Hoang's short novel Changing (Fairy Tale Review Press) received a 2009 PEN/Beyond Margins Award. Her first book Parabola won the Chiasmus Press Un-Doing the Novel Contest in 2006. She is also the author of the forthcoming novels The Evolutionary Revolution (Les Figues Press, Apr. 2010), Unfinished (Jaded Ibis Press, late 2010), and Invisible Women (StepSister Books, 2011). With Blake Butler, she co-edited the forthcoming anthology Thirty Under Thirty (Starcherone Books, 2011). She is an Associate Editor of Starcherone Books and editor at Tarpaulin Sky.