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FACE LIFT, ONE
- University of Pittsburgh Press
- Chapter
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F A C E L I F T , O N E “I would be rigged higher then, a schooner setting sail for the land of spices. I would be twice-risen dough. I would melt neither in the mouth nor the hand. Minutest of holdings, at each of my temples a bee-stung angel crawling up to my sparking scalp, my smile very nearly erect. Landslide, icefall, spindrift, peak—summiting, I would not be a woman but a beginning trapezed by upward-seeming circumstance. Take the pinecone weights off the cuckoo chin. Activate the muscles of my dark concern: vanity, this season in Purgatory, New York, and Milan, everyone is sporting bandages. Barresi pages:Layout 1 5/12/10 1:43 PM Page 38 Do I know too much or too little about living on earth? Gravity wants a ground-floor apartment first, then a nursing home, but I would be a penthouse library, my upturned face required reading for the sun. Resurrection by fractions. The wiggy folderol of spring knifes-up out of the green ground, waving. Inside, the soul wants to sniff a little helium and sing. No, let’s not blame the idiot soul for once. Persephone never refuses the lead in each bright summer’s rerun. Lyre, a little elevator music, please, to suit my second nature. To soothe my sutures. I have seen the gray linen gloves pallbearers wear. Vogue swears: everyone is pulling for me.” Barresi pages:Layout 1 5/12/10 1:43 PM Page 39 ...