Unit 4: Selection Vocabulary 4

Her mother was either hysterical or very quiet and withdrawn, so Prieta had to swallow her own tears.

What if that sweet- putrid smell is perfume injected into his veins to fool them all into thinking he is dead?

She watches one woman after another kneel before la Virgen de Guadalupe and light a candle. Soon hundreds of votive candles flicker their small flames and emit the smell of burning tallow.

Prieta remembers when her father bought the TV. The other kids had been envious because hers had been the first Mexican family to have such an extravagant luxury.

Whenever he pulled out the boxing gloves and walked over to me, before he could even tie the first one on my wrist, I was bawling my eyes out, until my mom came over, wrapped me up in her arms and carried me away from him.

Then he punched me on the arm, and although it burned like hell, I was happy to get it, because I knew it was the way he expressed affection.

I went into my room and played with my GI Joe figurines and little green plastic soldiers.

From that day on, I never wanted to play sports again, ever, just dolls, because you made up characters with stories and dialogue.

We were international spies, or we were young doctors in the emergency room, or we were homicide detectives, looking over the murder scene, gathering clues.

As early as four o'clock the trailing smoke across the horizon of the treacherous Lake Pontchartrain appears, and Mandeville knows then that the hour for its siesta has passed, and that it must array itself in its coolest and fluffiest garments, and go down to the pier to meet this sole connection between itself and the outside world...

You could catch an indescribable whiff of it in your inner senses, by the half-eager, furtive glances that the small crowd cast at La Juanita.

In Class A was entered, "La Juanita, captain Mercer Grangeman, colours pink and gold." Her name, her colours; what impudence!

Was it not bad enough for her to demean herself by walking upon the pier with him?

Then the wind came up the lake, and struck the town with a tumultuous force. The waters rose and heaved in the long, sullen ground-swell, which betokened serious trouble.

Before you know what kindness really is
you must lose things,
feel the future dissolve in a moment
like salt in a weakened broth.

What you held in your hand,
what you counted and carefully saved,
all this must go so you know
how desolate the landscape can be
between the regions of kindness.

What you held in your hand,
what you counted and carefully saved,
all this must go so you know
how desolate the landscape can be
between the regions of kindness.

Before you learn the tender gravity of kindness,
you must travel where the Indian in a white poncho
lies dead by the side of the road.

Then it is only kindness that makes sense anymore,
only kindness that ties your shoes
and sends you out into the day to mail letters and
purchase bread