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a gift—penalty and smiles, pain and glory; eyes raining sulfur, washed in
pride, deaths seeming religious. I breathe us. I ignore us. I like us—unbeknownst
to my science; and whales are walls, big beautiful, resilient elephants, and
Jesus heard, and Moses came … many more miles to home. Oh Naked Soul, screaming
at traffic, claiming conspiracy, I haven’t seen you lately. It comes by oceans—between
teethe, shadows wailing under earth. And I was late getting science, and I was
religious to a fault, and I balanced out quickly, but too late for Ms. Athena.
I was working my charms, they were with deficit, I was sickened by my mirror …
it involved angst, treasure, and intimidation – to see him in me, to know my
name, as some creature at her side – walls and antennas, dynamite and matches, hay
and straw – to have died in me, to have lived in you, pushing boundaries,
alert, alive in a stranger’s story: woe and pain, myth and assertion, lies and
belief.
