Kim KIELHOFNER came of age in small town Wisconsin. Currently, she resides in Montreal, where she participates in hell-raising, coalition building, and other activities that concern the public well-being.

COVINA

I wrote about her quite often,
in silence, on the top of a
snow capped hill.
She used to say to me,
"Why are people on magazines
always smiling? They suppose
it's such a great honor to
be on this magazine. When
I am on magazines, I shall
never smile."
She said that sometimes.
Perhaps it was in French.
But I don't know because
I don't know French.

She was just a sleeping
animal. Ocassionally she
did speak too much, and
did protest too little, as
her own remiss.

One day I found her in the
gutter, not down, but up,
strolling as with a
lover in the commons. To
tango music nonetheless.

And thought, there she is
a sleeping animal, now awaken
skipping on railroad tracks
and the like. It was then
that I began to write
about her, when she was
no longer sleeping.

Then what I wrote
was given to un hombre
living on the edge of the
northwest. He said, "This
is lost in all form,"
Un hombre was in the
old school, a traditional
thinker. "It is not art,
it is not worthy of professor
giraffe."

Meanwhile she asked me which
ones. Which one? I said, "All
of them."

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