prosopopeian comedy

in her review of An American Prayer (Creem, January 1979), smith takes morrison, out of the mirror, graphically. she does this, of course, because he fails to respond when she insists: "tell them james how we pray screaming" and "tell them jim of the burden of mutation." his failure means he and she makes not a we to the man, means not his impotence for once, which she wanted to witness (didn't everyone?). so we must discard her androgyny, so we must unveil her scar, castrato vaginalis: read Freud; jim obviously did. but so did she. ha ha. to one of the men she loves, as to all of the men she loves (in awe of her scar), she shrugs at the face in the mirror, "nothing posthumous is perfect."