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[3] 1-800-the-LOSt the weight of the receiver in my hand: the down bird in my palm first lifting you. the counselor’s words: rehearsed, a burlesque bland. the shift in time, the shift to looking through her lens: today you are just one of two hundred lost. My eyes fix on our bright fence. i say your name, but you are no one new — caught in an ancient book that she’ll condense. i want her to discuss you in the present tense. i want the gods to stop pretending love calls the departed home. We called you with our various loves, had hope, hovered over still fields; made wind like the gods do before they come unhinged, let their rage loose on an unresponsive yield. Fields gone deaf and dumb; unshaken, fruitless ground, unmoved by a neighborhood of mothers who left their own to find you — tables, like mine, set. i want the gods to swallow their prayers whole. Choke up my child like the Olympians — a girl, unbruised by her journey down their throats. i want her at my table: fruit, alms that the gods, i see, can give or take — balm for the irritations i caused, or they caused; gifts between us or perhaps among themselves — a girl that they’ll barter away. i’m here. And i’m willing to talk, or trade. ...

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