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30 Still Life with Fire Escape The fire escape’s an ugly shade of red instead of its old, unobtrusive white. I see it every time I look outside— the color of old brick or dried blood square in my line of vision. Yesterday, the painters woke us much too early for a Sunday—their words a holy gibberish. This neighborhood we love sometimes dispirits with its car-horns, alarms, and screeching brakes, the trucks that bark and snort, the soot that grays our sills, our woodwork, every cursèd corner. And now this brick-red paint, mixture of blood and iron, totemic, created nearly of flesh. I eat small meals these days, respectful of my small son growing inside me. As my belly swells, blood multiplies, my body’s a binding for the book of him, a factory, a crucible, a smelter, and a furnace. He grows not of my own will or accord, blood of my blood, but not entirely. ...

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