The Chapbook Lady
by Francis Levy
She’d identified herself as a poet when I first met her. It turned out we’d both liked that Dorothea Lasky poem “Porn” in The Paris Review. “I just watched a woman fuck a hired hand,” is one of the memorable lines.
Louise was a friend of a friend of a friend, actually no, a friend of a friend of a friend of a friend, once removed with whom I was no longer speaking. I’d met the friend of a friend of a friend once removed at the party for Helen’s chapbook. After readings of pre-Perestroika Samizdat, we would retire to Ukrainian East, the dank basement place next to Veselka on Second Avenue.