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43 The Book of Things Obscene to walk through the world with eyes open. With feet soles spread in the naked clover. A moment ago, outside, the black butterfly folded his wings and slid his whole body into the speckled throat of the tiger lily. Now, the wooden spoons, face up, huddle together in the metal pitcher beside the sink. Who will comfort the millions carrying their loads? The lean-to of the wood cutting board propped against the wall, behind the toaster. The giant mason jar, half-filled with red lentils. Each thing is a sentence, a subject and verb, the event of itself, perishing in ever more slivered ecstasy. On the counter, a six-pack of Guinness. The bananas discovering, one spot at a time, the well of darkness that waits for them. Or: What cool river will smooth the foreheads and families of the disappeared? What museum will house the final poses of those who died in the streets of Nanking and Nagasaki? The colander turned upside down in the dish rack. The tea kettle steaming, but still silent. It is obscene to walk through the world with eyes open. And now I have picked the blackberries and shaken the cream, to eat with this woman, her long back lined with light gold-black hairs, the bell of her secret cry still alive inside me, though it is another, whom I cannot go to, that I love. ...

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