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92 Vespers A radio chorale of spellbound singers chants in Russian harmony, then fades as if embarrassed by the earth’s groanings, the cries of insects in dry, wild grasses. We are all spellbound by our voices’ timbre, the color of our eyes in the mirror, the smell of our own breath in the night. Even when we pick at a toenail, we are worshipping, paying homage to the dense regeneration our epidermis proves. Skin dully grows, replaces, sheds, replaces, each new layer one second older than the last. And yet these so-called cycles aren’t quite round—they have brick-sharp corners, as when we find the first eye-line, or blue veins, hair-fine, scribbled on a newly thickened thigh. These corners poke us from our spell until we chant it back. We are in love with this persistent death. Daring it to stop—or quicken—we revel, entranced, in our fabulous decay. ...

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