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Harriers
- University of Pittsburgh Press
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37 Harriers For a week, the grandeur and mass of palace façades sloshed in the waters of the Grand Canal, our happiness fugitive as the ornate, shifting balustrades: oblique, partial. Column, cornice, and fluted pilaster dissolved in wet washes, reappeared as stone basilicas when we looked back. Our sham Thanksgiving—pasta, on Murano— a glassblower said, Watch out for Chinese imports in island shops. Next morning, she wanted time to herself. I copied Tintoretto’s Creation of the Animals: above bright swordfish and pike, pairs of marsh harriers and herons flock west with God. Unspeaking, we toured secret synagogues disguised as apartments, adjoining treacherous guilds, and returned to the hotel through alleys where men opened duffels onto counterfeit Prada bags, identical to those in dressed windows. She bought two for herself; he vanished into a Baroque wall. At customs, we had little to declare, one fraudulent strap loosed from its cheap metal ring, the other, like us, coming apart. ...