Like James Marshall, Michael Cunningham is a gay artist. Like Marshall, Cunningham is especially interested in how people talk to each other. Cunningham's most-recent book--"A Wild Swan"--uses fairy tales to examine Cunningham's favorite subject, the complexities of modern marriage, modern dating. (Which other gay artist has a major interest in fairy tales? Stephen Sondheim.) My favorite of Cunningham's re-tellings involves Snow White, and it's a story called "Poisoned": _ You wanted to last night. _And tonight, I don't think I want to. _Why, exactly, is that? _It's weird. Don't you think it's at least a little bit weird? And I'm, well, getting tired of it. _When exactly did you change your mind? _I didn't. Okay, I'm tired of pretending that I'm not tired of doing it. _Is it because of that apple joke, today at the market? Did that bother you? We don't quite know what we're reading,...