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the toy divine(s) I’ve had my plastic horses, the arc of their belly and veins raised in muzzle, delicately tendoned ankles. The malicious gleam of their eyes, marbles washed from dirt. Stones. All those things kept in jars, shoeboxes, what I’d rub fingers over— the polished surface, doeskin hat and feather of the marionette with a jacked spine, and splintery wooden matryoshkas inside, inside one another. A voodoo doll—its x’ed out eyes and mouth, yarn hair and red heart signifying where to stick the pin. The x equals every and nix, notta—meaning crossed out, marks the spot, signature. Roman numeral ten— one and zero—the thing becoming what it stands for. Perfection like that comes in a package, crafted by careful hands of Southeast Asian women. Someone put the (kisses, skull-and-bones, jacks) pieces together, someone painted its hooves black. Tyco, Mattel branded on 21 the hind, or stuffed and tagged with a prefab name. One was so busy keeping you— invisible pet on a leash— alive that no one had time to determine what you were. Unanswerable thing, you are equalizer, pretender, the self-in-question. There’s no formula for your forlornness, (the soul = polyester filling) or mine. Invisible substance. Crude representation. I’ve put as much of me in you as you could handle. There wasn’t much. I’ve retired a horse with a busted leg, pushed in the pin— 22 ...

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