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THE BIRTH The first would be five now. She remembers herself in family photos, dark hair braided and bandaged. She had to work at the second, Scorpio, who skulks through her dreams distempered and bony. But this one— full-term, sharp-chinned, surfacing face up—needs no such conjuring. She says, "This is your son," fingering the rosary of his spine. You scan her pouchy belly. You study the phonebook. You pocket your great thumbs. You step off the distance of the room. Applying the active mouth like a leech, she feels the persuasive bloodbeat, unfurls the fist, the palm already mapped and pencilled in. 59 ...

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