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9 outside the video store Outside the video store, a man in fingerless gloves sits on a three-legged stool playing a cello—the bow sawing as though to sever the strings, then dancing alone in a slow sarabande as I walk to my car, snow melting as it touches asphalt, the handle of my plastic bag denting the crook of my arm. The notes stretch thinner and thinner, past two men propped against the brick wall with cans of beer, past people idling in the handicapped spot to drop movies in the night return, until this public sadness engulfs each private pain like oily rivulets draining through sewer grates—the case open, red lining exposed like a body split down the middle, rain-pocked, sun-lightened, slicked by the oil of coins and hands. ...

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