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You know the parlor trick.
and from the back it looks likesomeone is embracing youher hands grasping your shirther fingernails teasing your neckfrom the front it is another storyyou never looked so aloneyour crossed elbows and screwy grinyou could be waiting for a tailorto fit you with a straight jacketone that would hold you really tight.
When all of a sudden the city air filled with snow,
blowing sideways,looked like krillfleeing the maw of an advancing whale.At least they looked that way to mefrom the taxi window,and since I happened to be sittingthat fading Sunday afternoonin the very center of the universe,who was in a better positionto say what looked like what,which thing resembled some other?Yes, it was a run of white…
In most self-portraits it is the face that dominates:
Van Gogh stares out of a halo of swirling darkness,Rembrant looks relieved as if he were taking a breatherfrom painting The Blinding of Sampson.But in this one Goya stands well back from the mirrorand is seen posed in the clutter of his studioaddressing a canvas tilted back on a tall easel.He appears to be smiling…
It could be the name of a prehistoric beast
on its hind legs to show off its large vocabulary,or some lover in a myth who is metamorphosed into a book.It means treasury, but it is just a placewhere words congregate with their relatives,a big park where hundreds of family reunionsare always being held,house, home, abode, dwelling, lodgings, and digs,all sharing the same picnic basket…
As sure as prehistoric fish grew legs
working up some irregular verbs for theirfirst conversation, so three-year-old childrenenter the phase of name-calling.Every day a new one arrives and is addedto the repertoire. You Dumb Goopyhead,You Big Sewerface, You Poop-on-the-Floor(a kind of Navaho ring to that one)they yell from knee level, their little mugsflushed with challenge.Nothing Samuel Johnson would bother tossing outin a…
This is not bad —
with Sonny Rollins for company,his music flowing through the soft calipersof these earphones,as if he were right beside meon this clear day in March,the pavement sparkling with sunlight,pigeons fluttering off the curb,nodding over a profusion of bread crumbs.In fact, I would saymy delight at being suffusedwith phrases from his saxophone —some like honey, some like…