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62 Wa k e one heavy breath and i’m smudged. They’ve powdered me silly! This rouge, you’d think the color did me in. Three days from Da nang to Des moines, i rose like yeast. They punctured me with hooks, fingery tubes. i’m boozy through and through. The mortician brings his smiles in. Parasites, they do well on him. his parlor stinks of prayer gone bad and lavender sachet. a clicking of beads, a shuffle of crepe. mother? i can’t pick up after myself. such a pile i leave, bad boy gone off: photos. some flag. The idiot clocks. i’ll pop up, jack-in-the-box! Peggy, Peggy, how death sweetens you and i’m grounded in my satin room, my touch as starchy as these green lapels. my breath, does it stale, is it yellow? and the earth, full of mouths. This fluid in me is thin as bad broth. how long, love, before a nipple dissolves, a cock? ...

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