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Atlantis Rush hour, leaving the last downtown station, our train descends under San Francisco Bay and I imagine we are Atlantis sinking, this populous of stockbrokers snapping evening papers, file clerks lacing sneakers onto tired, stocking feet.We’re all going down together— the brown-skinned girl wearing fuchsia sweats, thumbs working the buttons of her video game, and the green power suit who leans against a closed door, flips out her cell phone, dials home to say she’s running late, then mutters fuck,shit when the train slows to a crawl. See the girl slouched in that corner seat, notepad lying open on her lap—she’s scribbling,  Dumesnil PGS:Layout 1 4/28/09 12:32 PM Page 4 scribbling as if she could keep us alive by recording all our details right: the wingspan of a boy stretching his yawn, arched eyebrow penciled on a sleeping woman’s face—as if, fingernail by callus, ripped skirt by sideburn, bottom lip by butterfly tattoo, she could raise us up from the depths, silver, glimmering.  Dumesnil PGS:Layout 1 4/28/09 12:32 PM Page 5 ...

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