Lodestar Quarterly

Issue 13 • Spring 2005 • Featured Writer • Drama

Vessels

Kim Yaged

Love & Sex

(ALL primp.)

AGED

A lover?

25-54

My lover?

12-17

There is no lover

25-54

Only starvation

12-17

for physical contact

25-54

until even the contact is as painful as the isolation...

AGED

You want to see me. Cower. Blood. Sweat. And fears. But, I come to you. No bended knee. Miss. Trials. Tribulations. Accusations. Remembrance of more than I care to offer. Prime of my...

12-17

Life.

25-54

Makes no promises.

(ALL weave in and out of one another. An odd mating ritual.)

AGED

Bended knee? Perhaps to court. Or be courted. Physical need. Slip down a thigh.

25-54

Lips.

AGED

That are not mine. It can wait. It's only physical. Need. It will come in time. Don't push. The envelope. Hold your horses. Refrain. From the unspeakable.

12-17

Immediate gratification

AGED

Social revolution.

25-54

Change your routine.

12-17

Deceit.

AGED

Question authority.

25-54

Pass without looking.

AGED

Demand your fill.

12-17

No longer recognize.

25-54

Try not to attract attention.

12-17
(still flirting)

Exercise restraint.

25-54

Don't tell me you're right

AGED

Spared

12-17

if prepared

25-54

to conform.

12-17

There are no rights.

AGED

The rich diversity of perversities

25-54

I am

12-17

Not me.

(The weaving slowly becomes a polonaise.)

AGED

Isolation behind walls

12-17

One, two, three...

25-54

It's amazing when you stop to think about it.

12-17

One, two, three...

AGED

She was thirty years older than me

12-17

One, two, three...

AGED

"When many spouses of so-called mixed marriages were abandoning one another

12-17

One, two, three...

25-54

Thirteen years younger

AGED

It seems even more a miracle that a woman would stand beside her Jewish lover"

12-17

One, two, three...

25-54

That wasn't unusual

AGED

Help her go underground

12-17

One, two, three...

25-54

But she did.

AGED

We would hold hands when we went for walks in the park. If someone should stop us, she'd say she was my mother -- the difference in our age was so great. But, no one asked questions. "Such affections were expected in the fairer sex."

25-54

"My girlfriend was very supportive. She had made herself blond."

AGED

She helped get me out from the Gestapo

12-17

"Everyone was turning blond overnight."

25-54

She was arrested for immoral behavior

12-17

Corrupting a minor

AGED

I don't know it was so typical.

25-54

Maybe we were just searching for solace.

12-17

Or opportunity.

AGED

She would have been my father's age.

12-17

Where we could find it.

AGED

"I dated one woman, she made me curl my hair, wear dresses she was so afraid.

12-17

Pants are not okay

25-54

But, I loved the boyish look. That was my type.

12-17

The police followed me home

AGED

They would measure my wrists -- accuse me of being a man in disguise."

25-54

Secrecy

AGED

Repression

12-17

"Hide your true nature"

25-54

Or end up in a concentration camp.

(The dancing stops.)

Next Page:   In the Camps   (page 5 of 8 pages)

All Pages:   See the entire play on one page

Table of Contents:   Vessels

Kim Yaged is an award-winning playwright whose work has been performed throughout North America. Her chamber opera www.love was showcased by the New York City Opera and subsequently performed in Ann Arbor, Michigan. This production won four Best of 2001 Awards, including Best Musical and Best Original Production, and was runner-up in two other categories. Kim was a recipient of the Kennedy Center's Meritorious Achievement Award for the Diego Rivera Theatre's production of her play America. She was also an ArtServe grant recipient. Kim has written children's books for Disney Publishing. Her short stories and poetry are included in anthologies published by Ballantine Books, Cleis Press, and Arsenal Pulp Press. (Photo credit: Sarah Grace Shierson Dumser)

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