always late summer knew every herb of falling raising him with kisses of fresh chives say Goya’s deafness ‘I wasn’t myself’ through fur trees twelve months they stole my pillow with a silk bookmark
Luck took a wrong turn/ II (twitches from Jokha Alharthi)
[continued] the son of why why laugh when he laughs Allah knew fourteen live chickens when did she stop serving shortly when my slave, mine luck took a wrong turn
Good girls don’t go to Brooklyn (slabs from Hugh Ryan)
of the past. Walt Whitman somewhere nearby laptops and ringtones Staten Island, of course good girls didn’t go to Brooklyn at Coney Island alive but graying hair like hay
Indigo silk (bolts from Julie Otsuka)
When she wasn’t cooking (sauce from George Orwell)
new false teeth ten yards by five on the fat fat as were in and out of my mind I never remember her when she wasn’t cooking into the Beachwood beds of dead bees snubbed me bite the worm other fingers keeling thought as near to poetry with butter-colored hair with a big(…)
Stones (pebbles from Carolyn Forché)
to us, to you schoolyard stones paving stones bridge stones stone apples sick of sea from war to war
Swift as a telegram (chips from Osip Mandelstam)
accusing Mandelstam ‘Jew is’ a rough homespun towel the velocity of the clouds an Ibsen problem swift as a telegram viscid and mealy two chairs younger sister of death shameless burning Russian mushrooms a truce with Darwin love the Moslem enamels horizon has been abolished
Luck took a wrong turn (prongs from Jokha Alharthi)
oil rich in her uncle’s home his father’s slave ‘nothing, oh Lord’ another spool a single sweet coconut bar ‘you’re too tall’ still half talking in sleep soap had never touched his body ten boys will luck took a wrong turn
A spoon, your aunt (kernels from Henry James)
all silver and starch his plausibility frequently soundless ‘ah, you weak thing’ a spoon, your aunt destitute and impossible
The wheels will fall off
During the span of a significant birthday a few days ago, I was spoon fed several tablespoons of hard to swallow gloop: First tablespoon. Lydmilla phoned with good wishes, also explained: “At your age there are no prints left on the tips of your fingers.” I hadn’t known this. Second tablespoonful. Richie phoned with congratulations,(…)
