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9 Article for the End Times: Gas-Mask Bra Elena Bodnar, a Chicago scientist originally from Ukraine, invented the gas-mask bra. What makes me claw down to the lingerie, what makes me split another summer dress’s seam: your cigarette sparked suddenly so my old panic sweats up again, so I’ve spoiled our picnic under this clammy stand of Russian olives. What does it: shock of fireflies sconcing the pepper vine, the red buckeye lit like an eye’s riot of veins which thin at the edge of a gaze, of our century nuked to a tremble. You laugh, as I’m now nude except for the dangle of one pink embroidered cup which blows under my left breast—the other one, pearscented , outstretched, an offering. Let’s breathe as the beetles wing to the wool blanket their cold chemical light. Let’s kiss as you daub my nose’s tip with a crushed bug’s glow. You know the rosemary’s smoking 10 in the hills’ black socket— the last rabbit hops by with its lop ears on fire. As if it got lit from listening. Let’s lean in until both lobes catch. ...

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