Forgot what I was

supposed to tell us

as much as I stress

spill myself a phrase

letters describe words

that interrupt snow

the light it lands on

like my dim vision

that writes an update

as more of the same.

New Poetry

Author_SmallLeftAlignedTitle

###### Prime Rib

&nbsp;

There is room in your stomach

again so you've come to me,

head blooming with greasy ideas

of meat and how it should look.

Of course I know your preferences 

before you do, just as I know your

name before you register mine

(why must I continue to have one?).

This gridlock of tables is my 

little rat maze and you fancy

yourself a scientist of the first degree.

A charred letter of loin could save

this Thursday, you're convinced,

and I'm not unconvinced this is the case

for you, Large Man with Family. A dire

thing, these matters of big foods

and Thursdays. Still, I take myself with 

a grain of salt, the same sort rimming 

your margarita like gutters after

a snowstorm. It rarely snows here.

When it does, your Thursday has 

something in common with mine and

finally there is something to talk about.

&nbsp;

&nbsp;

###### Table 4

&nbsp;

“Yucca fries side of chipotle aioli, table 4.”

&nbsp;

Vinny hands off the plastic bowl to Curtis, who moves it down the line to me. I look at the potato knock-off, inured to its charms. The food here has taken on object status, its smells no longer commune with my autonomic reactions. The bitchy white light of the kitchen furthers such feelings of sterility, the cooks pace in it like nurses. Apron-clad, well-trained. I leave their operating room and re-enter the clubby atmosphere of our bar. A real shock to the system. Every restaurant has to be a party, no one dines in peace anymore. Even breakfast hours have been infiltrated by hungover disc-jockeys and their milk crates of archival treasures. Quiet mornings destroyed. Plates of savory crepes shifting and swelling to the bass, as if to acknowledge the pudgy dancing boys of night to come. Fleetwood Mac has become mimosa music.

&nbsp;

Table 4 is occupied by a wholeheartedly ambivalent duo, expensively done up but hunched over. Undoing the work. I often want to tell pretty young girls to sit up straight. Quasimodo TikTok necks, incapable of responding to me on the first or even second try. Their eventual attention makes me feel even worse, as though I'm distracting them from the real work of research elapsing on their phones. I do not wax poetic on the dignity of small-batch anything, but I can tell you how many plates you and your friend need, and I believe that making eye contact with strangers makes your day more specific. A new type of invisibility emerges, watching them have their food questions answered from reviews when I am standing inches away, full of insight, no matter how insipid. 

&nbsp;

&nbsp;

###### Girl Smooth

&nbsp;

It's me against the music. I know I suffer but I don't know why. Taking on the zone, I'm almost there. Lean in for a kiss with a girl-smooth face. It makes a difference. You say you want to lose control. Step outside, here comes the showdown. Take a little piece of my mouth and spit it out. For instance, we could dance all night. Comparing feet, crunk with Britney. Check this out. How have I loved this room every morning? Daylight. Boom-boom. Lick a pencil behind my back. Get on the floor and shake that ass. Heads bob and lean, busted goggles. Syncopated, no need to even touch me. That's also a sin. Yeah. Doubled over with clownish glory. Mennonite purse. Slit the plastic and stir. Don't know where I've lived for a long time. Blow. Breathe. Take over. 

&nbsp;

He's enough, the Israeli DJ. Thank him. No service, short bartender. Call some friends, it's pretty good. Turn where cars are. Bingo. New black lace, internet hair. It's all around, I can feel it now. Move forward. Machinated, let's go. You sort of walk in heels. Expensive pole lessons paying off. Propped cell, little traffic cone. The collected stories of your weekend. Look at her. Practiced sex drive, outrageous. Lost the beat. Didn't have it in the first place. Nobody's going to get the chance to look down on me. Bring the heat, dumb industry. Problems in the corner of course. Underage wishes. It's all forgiven, even fast fashion. I could go places but I won't. Self-care composites, hands clapping in emoji. I can't argue with small offenses. Grab my waist for real, moldy and irrelevant smile. Fade-in. The club is full of butt, you could still come. Political bouncers, reasonable giants. Scene hasn't collapsed yet. Bathroom line, tactful. Go ahead, cut. Compliments from a stall. I sort of do everything. Brave girl. Toilet girl. Sip a sip in that baby tee. Emerge. Last song of the night. No requests, capsule collection. Back-off Grindr grimace. It's all good. Lost your lip gloss but found a bag. Circle of life. Close out the devil's cup, patience for a weak pen. Fucked the signature, no cash ever. Stole your free time, tidal fortune. I can drive the whole group nowhere. Wasted tension, more dreadful laughter. Sometimes I just like to have it all. 

Restaurant Fragments

Woebegone is not getting married today

but a person I loved just did

&nbsp;

Woebegone is not eating corn on the cob 

because I shucked it in my salad

&nbsp;

Woebegone does not go to the park

but I fantasize about toting her 	

&nbsp;
					   
She has never eaten tofu cheesecake

nor dined at a restaurant that would accommodate

&nbsp;

Her dietary preference: fish. Nor does Woebegone

know about appetizers when I drink blush wine

&nbsp;

On the couch Woebe grooms her tail

with her tongue, she licks my nose

&nbsp;

In the morning, I am feeding her dry

food that purports crude protein

&nbsp;

For her growth, I give thanks

When I meditate, Woebegone heats

&nbsp;

Sometimes I say prayers aloud:

May she be free from suffering

&nbsp;

May she be protected

May she be at ease

Woebegone Is Not Getting Married Today

###### CLOWNING 🤡 on our Beaver Moon submitters 🤣

 

Iced Water Matcha with a splash of Regular Milk

When was the last time you had an Oreo

fall off the bone into your milk cup?

All my life I've been writing this poem 

 

about your bachelorette party in Nashville

When the Pope dies, I'll wear a robe to the coffee shop

Across the street from the Original Trader Joe's

I knew a mother who did that. Are you thinking 

 

of the pulled pork you spilled on your later-bloomer cousin's frock?

My only memory from life is of the cousin forest

Your trauma is imagined, whereas mine is perfect

 

In other news I am the finalist for two separate poetry awards

And you are still here painting the cousin forest

Clown! 

Last night was busted, low tea levels—

 

How do you explain to non-poets that getting published is excruciatingly difficult?

How do you explain to non-poets that being a poet is excruciatingly difficult?

How do you explain to non-poets that the moon hits different for you?

How do you explain to non-poets that hyacinths are a whole ass vibe?

How do you explain to non-poets that light literally dapples for you?

How do you explain to non-poets that life is not a linear story from A to B?

How do you explain to non-poets that you're into astrology in a 1970s Topanga forgotten singer-songwriter way and not a CHANI newsletter way?

How do you explain to non-poets that Emily Dickinson wanted to fuck everything but couldn't move?

How do you explain to non-poets that the trust fund ain't bussin' like it used to?

How do you explain to non-poets that you were the star of your cohort?

How do you explain to non-poets that your workshop professor had feelings for you?

How do you explain to non-poets the feeling of getting that first *New Yorker*? 

How do you explain to non-poets that you got that dawg in you?

How do you explain to non-poets that Anne Carson isn't boring?

How do you explain to non-poets that shame can be your best friend and your worst enemy?

How do you explain to non-poets that a stanza is like a little room?

How do you explain to non-poets that the poem is like a house you live in, but you locked yourself out?

How do you explain to non-poets that your parents helping you pay rent is an integral part of your process?

How do you explain to non-poets that even when you're not writing, you're still always writing?

How do you explain to non-poets that today is finally pub day?

How do you explain to non-poets how to network at the poetry reading?

How do you explain to non-poets that there's no right way to read it? There never was?

How do you explain to non-poets that we couldn't find the right fit for this issue but hope to see your work in the future?

 

I forgot to invoice on the Beaver Moon

Maybe we can edit this and it will be good

Maybe we can edit you and you will be good

Maybe we can edit Issue 4 of RECLINER and we will be good

A poem from your editors

There's no obviously epochal music on Warren Zevon's 1995 studio album *Mutineer*, a collection of self-produced home recordings released to little fanfare on Warner honcho Irving Azoff's vanity label Giant. Not that anybody had high hopes for that particular record; in the year of *Jagged Little Pill* and *To Bring You My Love*, with grunge holding steady and bicoastal hip-hop ascendant, middle-aged male singer-songwriters were not an industry growth sector. Instead, Zevon's greatest pop-cultural exposure of the era came on an episode of *The Larry Sanders Show*, where he glumly played himself (and the piano) through a half-hearted rendition of his 1977 novelty hit “Werewolves of London,” a song whose picaresque lyrical brilliance (“little old lady got mutilated late last night”) and third-power catchiness—abetted by the rhythm section of *Rumors*-era Fleetwood Mac—effectively wrote the royalty checks that Zevon would cash for the rest of his career.

&nbsp;

“Werewolves of London” was a monster; enough of an earworm, in fact, that Martin Scorsese used it as Tom Cruise's theme music in *The Color of Money* (1986). (It was an ideal choice for a young movie star on the prowl; one whose hair was *perfect*.) In 2008, Kid Rock—a lesser artist than Scorsese, but still an auteur of sorts— released the brain-dead coming-of-age anthem “All Summer Long,” which heedlessly mashed up “Werewolves” with Lynyrd Skynyrd's “Sweet Home Alabama,” tickling confused Boomers' pleasure centers while inadvertently squaring the circle on a long-ago lyrical feud. In 1974, on “Sweet Home Alabama,” Skynyrd frontman Ronnie Van Zant had called out Neil Young for his supposed anti-redneck slander on the song “Southern Man” (“now your crosses are burning fast”); a few years later, after Van Zant and several of his bandmates had been killed in a tragic plane crash, Zevon released “Play It All Night Long,” which imagined a hillbilly clan straight out of “Southern Man”—or maybe *Deliverance*—blasting “Sweet Home Alabama” in between bouts of banjo-picking, Bible-thumping and incestuous sex. “Play that dead band's song” cries the song's narrator; the line was shocking, mean-spirited, gratuitous and, in a typically Zevonian way, provocatively and productively double-edged. Was he really mocking an act of God, or suggesting—correctly, as it turns out—that Skynyrd's legacy would live on after their deaths, like a “Free Bird” rising from the ashes?

&nbsp;

Meanwhile, over on *The Larry Sanders Show*, the joke was that, professionally speaking, Zevon was a dead man walking. Nobody, from Garry Shandling's David Letterman-manesque title character, to the in-universe studio audience, to the actual folks watching the show on HBO, wanted to hear any of Warren's new shit. Instead, they all howled for “Werewolves of London,” and, having frittered away any residual goodwill (and actual residuals) over two decades of bad behavior, Zevon had no choice but to oblige. The only thing more humiliating than being a one-hit wonder is being a great musician—a “musician's musician,” in the words of admirer and sometime collaborator Bob Dylan—that most people only know as a one-hit wonder. When Warren asks Larry if he can play his 1976 masterpiece “The French Inhaler,” which name-checks Norman Mailer, the host's disinterest is devastating. The mandate is to play “Werewolves of London,” and that's it. *Turn those speakers up full blast/ play it all night long.*

&nbsp;

****

&nbsp;

On the very enjoyable 2004 Zevon tribute album *Enjoy Every Sandwich*—named for the tributee's famous last-ish words when he went on actual late-night TV with the actual David Letterman to commiserate about his impending, terminal mesothelioma diagnosis —“Werewolves of London” is covered by Adam Sandler, who gives it a good karaoke-night treatment. Like Letterman, who provided guest vocals on Zevon's tragicomic ice-hockey murder ballad “Hit Somebody,” Sandler is a fan who's found ways to incorporate his idol's music into his own work—e.g. the inclusion of 2002's tender, death's-bed love song “Keep Me in Your Heart” in *Funny People* (2009). Meanwhile, the most enduring song on *Mutineer*—the nautically themed title track—is covered on *Enjoy Every Sandwich* by Bob Dylan in a live performance that bristles with an ornery, deep-seated respect. “There might be three separate songs within a Zevon song,” Dylan once told an interviewer, “but they're all effortlessly connected.” Back in 1987, Dylan had played harmonica on “The Factory,” a rollicking Bruce Springsteen pastiche written for Zevon's studio album *Sentimental Hygiene*, which also featured contributions from Neil Young, Don Henley, George Clinton, and relative (at the time) newcomers R.E.M.: musician's musicians all, not that their collective presence helped their comeback-minded pal dent the Top 40.

&nbsp;

“Reconsider me,” Zevon sang on *Sentimental Hygiene*, a song whose apparent sincerity, buoyed by a gorgeous, soaring chorus worthy of Jackson Browne, belied a wry recidivist guilt. Between his myriad, self-destructive run-ins with various producers and power-brokers—including *Rolling Stone*'s Jann Wenner, who made him *persona non grata* in the magazine's pages—and his Three Mile Island-level-disaster area of a private life, there didn't seem to be a promise, vow, or habit that Zevon couldn't break. His trajectory was always twelve steps forward, one giant leap back; “way up on rehab mountain, we learn these things by heart” he snarked on the self-satirical AA fable “Detox Mansion.” Hence the beautiful-loser fatalism of later, stripped-down records like *Mutineer* and 2000's *Life'll Kill Ya*, whose characters—as ever a collection of sociopaths and lowlifes, thinly veiled surrogates for their creator—can't help but bemoan their station. Taken together, songs like “Life'll Kill Ya,” “My Shit's Fucked Up,” and “Don't Let Us Get Sick” suggest various stages of grief (denial, bargaining, anger, acceptance) on shuffle. A couple of years later, Zevon did get sick. He issued his reminder about sandwiches and the enjoyment thereof, got off a few more good lines about death and dying, and basked for a few months in the glow of multiple Grammy nominations for his valedictory 2002 album *The Wind* before succumbing to cancer at the age of 56—old enough to definitively reconcile with friends, partners, lovers, and family members, and to witness the birth of twin grandsons.

&nbsp;

The booby-trapped meaning of “Reconsider Me” sprang to mind earlier this year when Billy Joel tried to play sentimental hygienist by campaigning for his fellow piano man to enter the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame—a place where our antihero could finally be ensconced alongside competitors and collaborators living and dead. Despite his two decades of posthumous eligibility, Zevon had never made the short list of potential inductees, allegedly because Wenner, who carries a big stick with the Hall, had issued an over-his-dead-body edict about even considering his long-time *bete noir*. The idea of Zevon as an abject figure even by the standards of the Los Angeles music scene has endured as one of the truly twisted behind-the-music myths, consolidated by Crystal Zevon's scarifying 2007 memoir *I'll Sleep When I'm Dead: The Dirty Life and Times of Warren Zevon*, which, as a reviewer for *Slant* put it, tests a fan's devotion. There is, simply, no reconsidering Zevon after reading his ex-wife's exacting, almost forensic account of their time together (and apart), and no excuses proffered—by the author or her vast chorus of commentators—for a rap sheet including (but not limited to) drug and alcohol binges, domestic violence (verbal and physical), and personal betrayals ranging from penny-ante to unforgivable. The Widow Zevon's frustration, disappointment, and almost cosmic exasperation with her late husband is palpable: she was the official addressee of “Reconsider Me,” and though charmed by the gesture, she didn't buy it, not least of all because while serenading her in the recording studio Warren ignored his young daughter Ariel, who sat quietly in the corner waiting for the singing to stop.

&nbsp;

Nearly every page of *I'll Sleep When I'm Dead* contains some kind of similarly mortifying episode. And yet there isn't an ounce of hatred in its three hundred plus pages. Instead, beneath its scabrous and bruised surfaces, the book vibrates with the contradictory but passionate affection its subject had once described on “Accidentally Like a Martyr”: mad love, shadow love, random love, and abandoned love. If Zevon was a martyr, it was to his own cause—and hardly an accident—but the blend of voices, Crystal's included, singing his praises alongside his faults contradicts that song's belief that “the hurt gets worse and the heart gets harder.” Zevon's deathbed insistence that his ex-wife tell his story unredacted smacks a bit of bad-boy narcissism—a degenerate's last wish to get everything on the record—but it also betrays the voracious emotionalism of the man who wrote “Reconsider Me” and also “Keep Me In Your Heart,” with their plaintive unspoken subtext that the singer knows he might not otherwise be welcome in such a tender organ. *I'll Sleep When I'm Dead* duly inventories Zevon's various rivalries (including a fractious encounter with Billy Joel) and vendettas (he briefly considered not having a funeral just to keep Don Henley from attending), while also alluding to the deep, devastating fears that shadowed his final days: the suspicion that spending his life in step with the distancing effect may have succeeded all too well.

&nbsp;

For all her candor in *I'll Sleep When I'm Dead*, Crystal Zevon never comes out and says the obvious: that death effectively domesticated her lycanthropic soulmate for listeners and loved ones alike—the monster humbled and redeemed in the revelation of his own frailty, like David Naughton, splayed and naked at the end of *An American Werewolf in London* (1981). For some, that terrible vulnerability could be interpreted as a form of existential penance—the “Bad Karma” Zevon worried about on *Sentimental Hygiene*. For real dyed-in-the-wool moralists though, the good press and good vibes around Zevon's battle with cancer signified something more insidious—the unearned redemption of an abuser. 

&nbsp;

“What do we do about the terrible people in our lives?” asks Claire Dederer near the end of her new book *Monsters*, an incisive, open-hearted study of Pablo-matic virtuosos from Picasso to Polanski, with cameos by Miles Davis, Raymond Carver, and Doris Lessing—but not Warren Zevon, who doesn't rate a footnote. Her answer paraphrases no less than 2021's Rock & Roll Hall of Fame inductees REO Speedwagon: “mostly, we keep on loving them.” She's right, of course: the book's thesis is that when it comes to artists, as with our families, friends, and ourselves, emotional attachment is an involuntary and hypocritical impulse. We love whether or not we want to, or whether or not we can justify it on some moral/intellectual axis to others, or to ourselves. In a nifty act of rhetorical jiu-jitsu expanded from her 2017 *Paris Review* essay “What Do We Do with the Art of Monstrous Men,” Dederer slyly invalidates her own line of inquiry by taking the weasley implications of “we” out of the equation. “We is an escape hatch,” writes Dederer. “*We* is corrupt. *We* is make-believe. The real question is this: can I love the art but hate the artist? Can you? When I say ‘we,' I mean I. I mean you.”

&nbsp;

I love Warren Zevon, which is probably the only thing I have in common with Billy Joel, and if I'm being honest, from where I'm sitting—in Toronto, at a distance—it's a pretty uncomplicated love. I love him for his humor, his intelligence, and his talent: in other words, for all the things that he, as a ranking monstrous artist of his generation, used (or that were used by others) to contextualize, justify, or apologize for his abhorrent behavior. In Zevon's case, the rationalizations were even trickier insofar as his best songs often seemed to be inspired—or channeled—by said abhorrence. What's that they say in fiction workshops? Write what you know? That'd be boozing (“The French Inhaler”); addiction (“Carmelita”); satyriasis (take your pick). Poor, poor, pitiful him. “Zevon imagines his tricksters, blackguards, and flat-out psychotics as individuals,” wrote Robert Christgau in 1987. “In fact, he fucking inhabits them, for better and worse.” But let's be honest: that sense of inhabitation, of possession (demonic or otherwise), was always for the better, because Zevon's art was reckless abandon and collateral damage. The episode in “Exictable Boy” where the (anti)hero rubs pot roast all over his chest was autobiographical; the bit where he rapes and kills the homecoming queen before building a cage with her bones was not. But, crucially, it didn't sound like he was telling tales out of school.

&nbsp;

That potent, toxic cocktail of excess—spiked, but not diluted, by drips of poetry—is Zevon's signature; that it ultimately proved too strong for the Rock Hall is just as well. In the end, despite Billy Joel's eloquent advocacy, the voters kept their hearts hardened towards Zevon, excluding him from a class that featured Kate Bush, Sheryl Crow, Willie Nelson, George Michael, and Rage Against the Machine. Rather than suggesting which of these admittedly diverse (and, in their own ways, meritorious) acts should have been left off to make room for Zevon, I defer to my own favorite track off *Mutineer*, “The Indifference of Heaven,” which, as per Dylan's observation, unfolds as three separate songs in one: a crime-scene confessional in which the singer contemplates his own endless, existential rap sheet; a lament for a lost lover (maybe Crystal Zevon, or maybe another woman who was too good for him); and, in between, a pithy bit of music criticism targeting the Top 40 superstars peddling life-affirming platitudes on his radio: 

&nbsp;

*They say “everything's alright”*

*They say “better days are near”*

*They tell us “these are the good times”*

*But they don't live around here*

*Billy and Christie don't*

*And Bruce and Patti don't*

*They don't live around here*

&nbsp;

“Billy and Christie,” of course, are Billy Joel and Christie Brinkley, and “Bruce and Patti” are Bruce Springsteen and Patti Scialfa. “Around here,” in Zevonian terms, is a lonely place, far from the primo real estate occupied by his peers. It's the Hollywood Hawaiian Hotel of "Desperados Under the Eaves” which the narrator fully expects to remain standing, even as California slides into the ocean, until he's paid his bill. It's the fatal Graceland of "Porcelain Monkey,” where The King, “left behind by the latest trends,” waits out his own obsolescence in a fugue state of fried chicken and despair. It's a purgatorial stint in "Detox Mansion," a sweaty stint in “Prison Grove,” and a majestic exile in "Splendid Isolation.” I'll go to my grave wondering whether the phrase “the vast indifference of Heaven” is meant to evoke a universe in which crimes and misdemeanors—including Zevon's own—are calmly judged by a higher power, or one where there's nothing over the horizon. If there is a Heaven, I doubt Warren Zevon is there; if he finally went to Hell like so many people advised him during his lifetime, it'd be fair enough. Either way, he isn't in the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame with Billy and Bruce and Bob and everyone they know; he doesn't belong there anyway.

The Indifference of Heaven: Warren Zevon

###### Spa/Croissant

Velvet and her friend Mel were in the gravity sauna.  They hung in silk mesh hammocks twelve feet above sage embers, and Velvet was almost at her limit.  She tipped her tongue as a drift of ash flew towards the ceiling ventilation, melting like a snowflake.  Mel looked serene, though her limbs were quite pink.  She had Big Mama Boobs, nipples like doilies.  She had slender legs, enormous feet, and a Hawaiian toe ring she was unable to remove. 

“I just started a business,” Mel said.  “It's called The Chorus. You pose a question to the Chorus like, 'what should I spend five-hundred-dollars on, paying off my credit card or new boots?' and give it a time limit, like fifteen minutes, and users can vote. At the end of your time limit, the Chorus has made your decision for you!”

“But what if people say something mean like, 'Just kill yourself instead'?” Velvet said. Her mouth felt like it was coated in sand. 

“No comments. Just the two choices you're caught between.”

“It's just for little things, or things like, 'should I break up with my boyfriend, yes or no?'”

“I imagine people will use the Chorus for all sorts of things, but the Chorus only really works for specific and well-posed questions.”

“OK and what about when someone asks, 'I'm really depressed and have no will to live, should I kill myself, yes or no?'”

“You're making me uncomfortable, I'm setting my boundary,” Mel said. She drew a square in the air. It framed her face. 

Velvet rocked in her hammock, kicking off from the baking stone. “Jesus, Mel. Do you really think that total strangers know best?”

“No, not me,” Mel said. “People. People love this stuff. People are so stupid.”

“People are so stupid,” Velvet cooed, content that they were getting along again.  Her heart slid from where it had been.

Both women looked to a crack in the stone wall, widening to a crevice of blinding light.  Mel shielded her eyes with her hand.  Through the sauna door, a woman emerged with a stiff haircut in black basketball shorts and a black bra.  She took the cord wrapped around an iron loop, and lowered Mel's hammock to the platform. 

“Lash and scrub,” the woman confirmed, lifting Mel with surprise strength to her feet. 

“Mew,” Mel said.  She wanted to leave the sauna too, but she was too weak to gesture to the attendant.  Her time would come, she knew.  A similar woman would lower her hammock and peel her from the cedar boards of the platform.  Velvet didn't get lashes like Mel. She could picture it— Mel on her belly, her neck propped like a cobra, while the antennae of butterflies were glued to her lash line.

Velvet waited in the polar tub for Mel to finish her treatments. She treaded water, fluttering her arms so she didn't have to rest her feet on the icy bottom, her legs were as tight as boards, and she dragged them heavily.  Fresh snow carpeted around the tub.  Velvet's footprints disappeared with each snowflake; they were now just the slightest scoops in the snow.  She tried to concentrate on the cherry tree beside the pool, lift up the trunk, up the black branches, through the rice paper blossoms, and past the painted sky.  She was unsure how long she'd been in the tub—somewhere between one minute and one hour.  A dove satisfied its gleaning from the cherry tree's base and flew to a top branch, knocking snow into the tub. 

“Fucker!” Velvet growled, her breath fogged, and the bird tucked its beak, its rosy belly like a blush. 

Mel emerged from the back room.  The sauna sweat had dried in her hair and it fell in crunchy mermaid waves.  She skipped over the snow and lowered herself in the polar tub, sucking air through her teeth.

“So about The Chorus,” Velvet said.  After a few moments, recognition hit Mel. 

“Who's gonna make it?” Velvet asked.

“Oh, you just pay someone,” Mel shrugged, and started telling Velvet a story about a mean woman at work. 

Velvet tried to listen, but her gaze was drawn to Mel's eyes. Her lashes moved like waving wheat.

“You should go to my gal,” Mel said pointing to her eyes.  She was used to hypnotizing people. “I can't believe you go to the spa and don't get lashes. That's like having a croissant without butter, honey, and a cup of tea.”

“Do they pull the antennae off the butterflies in front of you?” Velvet asked.  Her nailbeds were indigo. 

“I don't know,” Mel said.  “They tape my eyes shut.”

&nbsp;

&nbsp;

###### Airport/Fast Food 

Velvet was waiting for her friend Murph to pick her up from the airport. On her flight there had been a weather disturbance on the middle leg of the journey, and for four hours the airplane had turned in a series of slow looping spirals like a child's roller coaster, making it impossible for beverage service. Velvet had felt so dehydrated that she had licked the airplane's window in hopes of condensation. Now on the curb, she was still reeling.

Murph pulled up in his brown car. He was hunched over the steering wheel in a coat made of teddy bear hide. Murph looked like a fifties milkman. He had a chin that pointed upwards, a puffy jaw, and a good hairline. He heaved himself out of the car, put Velvet's suitcase in the trunk, and told her to buckle up as they speedbumped out of the airport roundabout.

“Next time, I'm coming back as a woman,” Murph said. “You have no idea how good you have it. Who paid for your flight?”

“My mom,” Velvet said. She wanted to hold something in the car for support, but the leather strap in her eye line made her suspect she was in an ejector seat, and so she seesawed in Murph's car.

“See what I mean?” Murph said.

“Can we get something to eat?” Velvet asked.

They stopped at a fast food place near the airport. Everyone inside the restaurant had a suitcase; the wheels of their rollerboards squeaked and squealed like a mouse chorus on the red and white checkered tiles.

Velvet really just wanted a water and to sit down, but she felt pressured and so ordered a coffee. Murph paid for it along with his food. She followed him to a table by the trash can.

Murph got a burger between two flappy lettuce slices that he dipped in ketchup with each bite. Velvet put her coffee to her nose, but still smelled gymnasium. 

“I took my girl out a few nights ago. Just to get into the club it's $20. Then we had two beers and two tequilas—$75. You don't realize it when it's not your cash.” 

Murph ate his burger, wiping ketchup from his fingers onto the printed paper placemats. 

“My girl always wants to go out, so I say, 'Fine, this time it's your treat.' We get dressed up. We go to a nice dinner. We split an appetizer, get two entrees, two beers, no dessert. A hundred bucks with tip. Then we go to the club, she pays $20 for me to get in. In the club we get two beers and two tequilas—$75. After that she says, 'Baby, I can't take it anymore!' So we go home. One night and she had enough. That's why we don't go out anymore.”

Velvet waited behind a child to fill her water cup.  He was wearing shoes with hidden wheels in the soles, and slid back and forth as if he were hovering slightly above the ground while he depressed the lever for ice, filling his cup one ice cube at a time. 

An employee in white pants, a white shirt with pearline snaps, a white sailor's cap, and a checkered red and white cloth folded into an apron and secured with a kilt pin at his sacrum, dipped his mop into the yellow plastic basin.  He swirled the mop in the opaque gray water, in which several drinking straws bobbed.  He wrung the mop and slapped it onto the red and white tiles, mopping down the sloping edges of the sinkhole.  It was about three feet in diameter with three orange caution cones alerting patrons to its danger.  Down Velvet looked into the sinkhole, exponentially blackening to the bottom of the pit that she couldn't see, its depth intuitive, and her breath catching, reluctant to send it down the sinkhole.

A single glittering ice cube slipped to the floor. The child tilted back his head and slurped from his cup.  Lemonade spilled in two streams, meeting in a river at the pit where his Adam's apple would be. He finished the drink and “ah”-ed stickily. Rollerboarding away from the soft drink fountain, he dropped his cup into the sinkhole.  The mopping employee frowned as the sinkhole expanded another inch. 

Velvet gave up on her water and sat.

“Can I have a fry?” Velvet asked Murph.

“Sure,” Murph said, pushing the cardboard boat to her, “You can have the rest.”

&nbsp;

&nbsp;

###### River Snake/Haircut

Velvet and her friend Mel walked across the bridge to exercise class. The river was a dried cement slab, a trough of gray water cut through. Plastic bags bobbed like bullfrogs. An overturned shopping cart, dried algae witch's hair, the bent cage of the cart the rib bones of a dinosaur. Under the bridge there was a snake, an escaped reticulated python. Velvet had seen it once, orange scales, overlapping lavender circles on its spine like ∞ repeating forever. The snake lay in the trough with its mouth open, waiting, ready to eat anything that came down the river. 

Indian summer, hot October evening, car exhaust and woodsmoke and Mel's shampoo made the air murky apple cider. 

“That's what I want my armpits to look like,” said Mel, and she pointed to the concave joint of Eucalyptus tree branch, where the bough met the trunk. The bark was stripped from the branch, the branch plastic gray-white, the arm of an android.  

Later, Velvet smelled the tree, like soil, slightly mentholated, smelling nothing like skin.  Skin smelled like spiced bread, or condensed chicken noodle soup, or sour cut grass.

“I want my arms just like that,” Mel said dreamily, looking at the tree branch that looked almost like an arm. 

Exercise class was in a white room with slippery white floors and walls. The ceiling was one big mirror. Velvet and Mel and the other girls lay on their backs with a pea-green ball the size of a schoolroom globe between their thighs. The instructor, with her wet ponytail and threatening tan, yelled over the music, and Velvet tried to bring the ball to her nose, keep her shoulder blades cemented to the ground, keep the natural curve in her lower back, keep her neck swan-like, tuck her chin and tuck her hips. She could do maybe two of the commands at once. Velvet sneaked a look at Mel, who struggled too. They completed the set with the globe-sized ball, and then were given a ball the same shade of green, this one the size of a pommelo, and had to do the whole thing over again. Velvet's palms slipped on the floor; she flipped them up. In the mirror, she looked crucified. The instructor yelled at her. The next ball was the size of a jawbreaker. A shooting pain spread from Velvet's hip crease, and she wondered if it was constructive pain or if she was doing it wrong. The instructor demonstrated the new move. She held the last ball, the size of a pea, between her knees, shot it into the air, and caught it between her thighs like a Venus flytrap. The ball was actually a pea. The instructor used a towel to wipe the mashed pea, and told the girls to get to work. Velvet held the pea between her knees, but could not hurl it into the air like the instructor had.  It rolled into her shorts.

Coming out the door of exercise class, Velvet was so fatigued she crashed into the wall, scraping her shoulder on the stucco, the stucco leaving a tic-tac-toe scratch.  She heard the honk of a horn. A man in a brown car had pulled up to the curb in front of exercise class and he seemed to be waving at Velvet. 

“Is that Murph?” Mel said. It was Murph— now barely recognizable, his hair buzzed, shorn close to the scalp. He looked like a de-loused waif. He looked so different that his car looked different.  His face appeared larger, head larger.  His ears pink nautilus, like hotel soap in a hotel dish.  She could see the ridges of his skin stretched tight over bone. Velvet, embarrassed, knew exactly what he would look like skinless, his skull a seashell. 

Velvet and Mel approached, and Murph leaned on the passenger seat peering out at them from the dark interior of his car, a cigarette smoldered in the ashtray. 

“Your head,” Velvet said, though she had tried to say something different.  

“I stopped going to the barber since we moved, so my girl tried to cut my hair. She did all right at first but then she got cocky.  What are you girls up to?”

“Exercise class,” Velvet said.  “We hate our armpits.”

“Huh,” Murph said.  “Need a lift?”

“No thanks,” Mel said before Velvet could reply, and Murph drove off.  

“He's such an asshole,” Mel said.  Blue now, her face a yellow moon under the streetlight, a bat breeze taking up her sweaty black ribbon strands of hair.  She looked angry.  

Velvet watched the taillights of Murph's car disappear over the bridge, her weary legs, arms like they were wrapped in bunting, she felt wound-up to the point of spinning, and had the sensation of being in the wrong space, that this moment with Mel in front of exercise class could exist without her presence, that her body belonged in Murph's car, carrying over the bridge, the long muscle of the river snake stretched in the dark below. Almost seemed easier, to be one muscle without anything else to worry about. 

&nbsp;

&nbsp;

###### Winds

During the winds, Velvet lost her driver's license and had to ride her bicycle. She jimmy-rigged a flashlight to the top of her helmet, put the flashlight on the strobe setting so the street jumped out at her in hot, white bursts.  She rode on the sidewalk too, coasting the slopes and falls of the driveway dips, her fingertips kissing steer horn handlebars. The strobe flashed on the tawny underbellies of magnolia leaves, their green shells, and white confectionary petals tossed by the wind. 

A dust devil spun into her path. She pulled a black bandana over her lips and nose, and shut her eyes as the blast hit her. Dust, debris, whipped her face, Velvet wobbled on the bike. Unable to balance, she opened her eyes. A cinder from the dust devil shot into the caruncle of her right eye. She back-peddled to stop, and jumped down, her crotch spared by the rocking chair curves of the cruiser.

“Jesus fuck,” she said behind black bandana, and shielded her eyes from the winds with her forearm. She tore off her helmet, left the bike on its side, and crawled on her hands and knees, feeling her way to a hedge. 

The cotoneaster was trimmed mausoleum-sized. Velvet pushed her way into the hedge. Inside the hedge-box was a red water pump on a cement plank.  Free of the winds, she picked the grit out of her eye, resting on the carpet of dried leaves. She pulled the bandana from her face and breathed in, not deep, pure breaths, the air not overly fresh, but rather like the old air of a dry cave. Much better than the winds. Regretful about the abandoned bike but didn't have the inclination to move, luxuriating on the leaves beneath her, the crushed leaves released the fragrance of almond. The red pump was cheery, meters at its base with spinning red arrows, a slow drip of water. She could use the pump as a table, or to line-dry her clothes. The cement slab would be good for food prep, correspondence. She could sleep where she was, her legs straight before her, back resting against the hedge, sinking into the hedge slightly, stems like acupuncture at the nape of her neck and along her spine.  As soon as she closed her eyes, she could sleep right there.  She picked a berry from a cluster, not quite pink, but green in places like rainbow sherbet.  She bit in with one tooth, the teeniest nibble. Astringent, parched her mouth, she immediately spat.  Velvet rose to her knees and lowered her head to the drip.  It took a few moments to get a mouthful, taking in the water drop by drop, the droplets dissipated on her rough tongue, every drop delicious. When she was done, she rolled back into her previous position, not quenched, but sustained, liminal. She could stay here for quite some time.

“Velvet?”

“Yeah?”

“You OK?”

Through the break in branches, Velvet saw Murph lift her bike from the sidewalk. She pushed out of the hedge. The kickstand of her bike squeaked as Murph booted it into place.  The winds had died down, a hot breeze picked at individual follicles on Murph's coat made of teddy bear hide. He handed her the helmet, strobe flashing, and she fastened it onto her head.  He wore a pair of red framed welding goggles, the dark lenses flipped up, the elastic yellow and black striped band constricting his head. 

“Why are you walking?”

“My girl's got the car, she's working tonight.”

Now, Velvet saw the squat pale house behind the cotoneaster shelter, dry grass fenced in with pickets, a shake roof, a light not in the front room, but seen through the front window, back in the further reaches of the house, the glow a kitchen light. 

Attracted to the strobe light, an Idia moth, wing pattern like wood grain, floated beside Velvet's ear. Murph scanned the empty street, took a pack of cigarettes from his coat pocket, and offered one to Velvet. She blinked. She hadn't had a cigarette since the winds. Last week cleaning her apartment, Velvet had found a butt, and sucked on it, pulling scorched tobacco through the filter, tasting like the walls of an old hotel.

“I'll put it out before the winds start back.  Got a light?”

Velvet found one in her backpack, a gold foil lighter shaped like a gold brick, on one side the design of a four leaf clover and the word “lucky,” on the other side, Roman lettering like a headstone that read “GOLD” and “999.9” beneath it.  She handed it to Murph.

“I'm not worried about starting a fire, I'm worried about the fines. $5,000 between me and my girl last year.  They make all their money during the winds.”

Murph lit his cigarette, the smoke dusting the air. 

“But now my girl doesn't smoke anymore because she wants to have a baby.  I told her, 'Yeah, but who's gonna watch it?'  That's why she's working tonight, to get into the Union.”

“I'm going to lie down for a bit,” Velvet said.

“In there? There's bugs and shit.”

“I'm fine. Can you put my bike next to that magnolia tree?”

“Sure, no problem,” Murph said. 

Velvet moved towards the cotoneaster. As she backed into the hedge, she watched Murph, cigarette between his teeth, push the bike by its steer horn handles, the tick-tick-tick of the wheels as he pushed, the strobe on her helmet reflecting in his goggles so she could see the dark hollows of his eyes only in flashes, the strobe turning his goggles into mirrors, his eyes into mirrors. 

Velvet awoke to apple cider.  She knew it was a fire, but was slow to react, stiff in her hedge-box, she was unsure if burning wood smelled like apple cider, or apple cider smelled like burning wood.  She climbed out of the hedge-box on all fours. 

The house's roof was on fire, smoke on the winds.  In the distance, she heard the scream of a fire engine, and rolled her bike from the magnolia tree, getting her bearings.  Embers from the burning house floated up on the winds to the house next door, licked the frayed shingles as tinder.  Velvet watched the bud of a flame bloom beside the weathervane, and another roof began its surrender to the blaze. She pulled the black bandana over her mouth—the whole neighborhood would soon burn.  Wood cracked, smoke scratched her eyes.  The whole neighborhood would go up soon, houses into ash. She needed to move, she couldn't move. She could always just wait there, in the bush.  It wouldn't be so bad to just wait.

Four Velvet Stories

                   *For Andrew Kenower*

&nbsp;

*Friday Night Lights* is a cool show about

teens that play football and the

people who have relationships with those teens. 

It's a cool show. 

It centers around the football coach, Coach Taylor and his

wife and school guidance counselor Tami Taylor.

They're the Taylors.

Coach Taylor is a molder of men. 

During the series he molds many teens into men, like Tim Riggins, 

the local beer-drinking, and sorta philosophical heartthrob. 

Tim gets laid often and is so cool that he doesn't even have parents. 

There's also Smash Williams, the most talented guy on the field, until 

he messes his knee and becomes the manager of Alamo Freeze,

a local dessert restaurant, sort of like Baskin Robbins.

But then Coach Taylor gives Smash a great pep talk and 

his knee heals and Smash then plays football in college. 

Even this guy named Landry gets low-key molded. 

Landry's character arc is interesting, to say the least.

He's kind of a nerd, but then the writers have him murder a man.

But you can tell they regretted having him murder a man,

so they resolve it pretty quickly and never bring it up again.

Landry also hooks up with Tyra, and he plays in a band. 

He's the lead singer and guitarist. 

After Tyra goes off to college, Landry hooks up with Jess. 

Both Jess and Tyra are way out of Landry's league. 

But somehow, he scores. 

He also scores when he becomes the kicker of the football team

and kicks a really great ball for the win. 

I was excited when I saw the ball sail

between those two things that the ball is supposed go between for the team to score. 

“Good job, Landry!” I said to myself quietly while watching the show.

There were tears on my face, as I said this.

Because watching fictional characters play sports usually makes me cry

The Taylors also have two daughters. 

One is a baby, and the other is Julie Taylor. 

Everyone hates Julie. I even think her own dad,

Coach Taylor hates Julie. She’s just incredibly annoying.

She dates Matt Saracen, who is maybe my favorite 

character on the show. Matt is so sad all the time. 

I'm sure his character has the sun sign of cancer. 

Matt also doesn't have parents, but 

he has a grandma that he takes care of. 

One cool fact about Matt is he is the quarterback of the team.

Another cool fact about Matt is that he's an artist. 

Like me. He draws and I write poems. 

I recently wrote a chapbook called *Inflatable Ball*,

And Matt throws an inflatable ball,

And my chapbook is available for sale

At bottlecap.press, not bottlecap.com

Or bottlecappress.com

But bottlecap.press

It costs $10 plus shipping and is worth every penny.

I bet Matt would like my chapbook, since we have so many similarities.

Matt's sadder than me though. And more athletic. 

We are both cancers. I don't have to take care of my grandma, 

because my grandma died and 

I don't have to date Julie Taylor.

I date Lindsey Boldt, who’s a hottie and

has a terrific book of poems 

out now from Dogpark Collective.

So it all kind of balances out. 

*Friday Night Lights* is a really good show and 

I would recommend it even

if you don't like football, which I personally don't. 

But I do like *Friday Night Lights*,

which, in my opinion, is 

a really good show.

Friday Night Lights

###### Monologue

&nbsp;

I am in a husk of what my life used to be, which I only felt a part of four years ago, for a few months after graduating from college, working on a comedy-related research endeavor and my art. It depresses me, and I often find myself in a depression during my days and feel very little sense of relief, though I enjoy making my girlfriend laugh, maybe in part because she is often crying, which I think of as a unique quality in a person. I've never met anyone capable of immediately expressing their emotions like her; it is something our couples therapist refers to as her “superpower.” My girlfriend and I agreed not to have children together, despite my anxiety of missing out on feeling deep love for a child, which may be a valid anxiety, though being a parent is not a great reason to be alive, as your child can always die and, should that happen, you would probably have to kill yourself as a result, which my mother told me she might have to do if my brother and I both died before her. My mother does not believe in quitting, generally, she forced me to stay enrolled in swim team for a long period, which did not convert me to the sport or earn me a social circle. That only happened with theater, which I now regret joining, as that space was a violent one where repressed males created an uncomfortable alternative to a sports locker room where we demanded various forms of nudity from each other. As a high schooler looking to get into acting school, I did a monologue from the perspective of a teenager who ran over a toddler with his family's car, and I practiced the monologue constantly with my mother, who supported me, but said the way I was performing made me “look constipated,” which was true, I was heaving and clenching, trying to work up an anxious energy that parallels the tension I feel when I try to shit and can't. I didn't make it into most of the acting programs I applied to with this monologue, despite having starred in many school plays in which acting came easy, where I was an ebullient and charming comic performer praised by many, so I am not sure why that changed, and other people got accepted while I was rejected. I believe my mother was honest about my looking constipated because she loved me deeply and wanted me to succeed, which I recently recalled to a friend who found that funny, so we both laughed. He told me that seeing the popular film *Scarface* in a movie theater the week before was a “religious experience” for him, which I found surprising and made me question if I've ever had an artistic experience akin to a religious one. I am not spiritual, though I meditate sometimes, but not rigorously, so I am more anxious than I was raised to be.

&nbsp;

&nbsp;

&nbsp;

###### Play Fragment

&nbsp;

Once, as a child, I scuba-dived with my dad and sang the entire time, using up all my oxygen, so I needed to use his emergency oxygen to reach the surface, which was fine for me but scared the shit out of my dad, who couldn't believe I *sang* the whole time, but I firmly denied that I did, and even today only smile and shake my head when he brings it up, never confirming our reality. I always choose silent refusal over physical or verbal aggression, and the only fights I ever got into as a child involved me pinning my little brother down as he would try to punch me, possibly for good reasons, I can't remember; today, my brother is a much taller and stronger person than me, and the one time we fought during the COVID-19 lockdown, he grabbed me by the collar and lifted me up in front of our parents, which of course upset them, and I started screaming, so he let me go, and my whole family was surprised to find that my scream came out as a feminine, high-pitched shriek. I only feel protected by the women in my life, like my mother and girlfriend, and I mostly read books by and about women, and am friends with many. When I'm not in the presence of women, I become a sweatier, more nervous person with less to say, and have ever since I was a child, when my dear friend, Lisa, saved me from falling out of a tree we'd been hanging out in. We never kissed, and we were never boyfriend and girlfriend—we were so young—but I do think I fell in love with her when she saved me, and I realized that this little girl, maybe six years old, two years younger than I was at the time, was my protector, and my friend, my equal, and men had never saved me. I've loved men too, but I've never had a boyfriend, even though there was a time in college, as an incel at a large state school, when I really wanted to love a man or boy, which never really happened. I would take acid with my five male roommates, Chris, John, Rick, Jackson, and Jaco, and one time, I held John and listened to his heartbeat while *Animal Planet* was playing, and I fell in love with him then, mostly in a sensory way, feeling a world open up through his ribs, then opened my eyes to a polar bear eating a penguin, and said “oh no” at the sight of blood, though I did not throw up—I had done that on a different drug trip on different drugs, where it seemed that garbage made up the world, and humans, animals, buildings, and nature were all built from the same junk, which made me feel closer to a few different moody artists whose work had felt impenetrable before then, which I was grateful for. I fell in love with art partially due to my experiences with drugs, but I don't do them anymore, instead I sneak art into my days at work, listening to albums, watching videos, and reading articles. Most true pleasures are secrets, tucked away from life, even the conscious mind. I believe my girlfriend keeps secrets from me, though not large or hurtful ones, just normal ones, or small pleasures she may have developed as an only child. Sometimes, this concept brings me so much comfort that I want to cry and do so while we hold each other, which makes her cry, usually in our new apartment we just moved into together, in front of a huge open window between our beautiful new bookshelves to a street full of strangers, who may look up through the trees at us crying and see a sort of small film, which makes sense since we are both former theater kids who quit acting for writing, in part because we had had enough of the rejection, even though today we find that our article pitches get rejected all the time, though it's good that we're putting ourselves out there, despite how suffocating it is to work in a medium where we are still constantly refused, so sometimes, to soften the pain, I will sing to her about how whichever editor rejected us is a lying, perverted creep, projecting my voice to the world in a large, natural baritone, and she'll laugh then join in, calling them an abuser, filling the room with her surprisingly clear, classically trained mezzo soprano.

Monologue and Play Fragments

Late to dance class I kicked off my shoes

among the other shoes outside of the studio

it was a pole dancing class and I had signed up for

&nbsp;

two classes back to back two hours the first

hour was choreography and the second was tricks

by the end of the second hour I was very dizzy

&nbsp;

and weak but I had accomplished a new trick

wearing my black vinyl lace-up 8-inch pleaser boots

and I got a good video to prove it I took off my pleasers

&nbsp;

and headed toward my brown Birkenstocks

which I had kicked off outside the studio but what

I found in the place of my Birkenstocks were

&nbsp;

someone else's much older much less cared for

Birkenstocks in the same size same color same style

left in the same location but definitely not mine

&nbsp;

I was crushed I immediately took a picture

of these Birkenstocks and sent them to the studio

owner asking her to send a message to the other

&nbsp;

dancers to notify them that someone with the same

shoes as me had accidentally taken mine and left

theirs behind then I went back into the studio

&nbsp;

and told the instructor what had happened

she said I bet it was Christine since she smoked

a whole blunt before class and she started texting

&nbsp;

other girls to see if she could locate my Birkenstocks

when I got home the owner of the studio had been 

looking through the security footage she sent me

&nbsp;

a screenshot of me taking off my Birkenstocks

before class “Is this you taking off your shoes?”

she said Yes I said and another one of me putting on

&nbsp;

the same Birkenstocks after class That's me I said

but those are not my Birkenstocks you can see

the sole is dirtier on those ones mine are newer

&nbsp;

“I understand” she said she told me that she did not see

anyone else wearing the same Birkenstocks as me

to class in the footage and that the only time

&nbsp;

my Birkenstocks moved was when the studio door

opened and pushed them aside but she promised

she would look through the footage again meanwhile

&nbsp;

I had eaten lunch and laid down on the couch

and was replaying the video of my new trick which

was an aerial ballerina I edited the video and put a

&nbsp;

Doja Cat song over it so it looked really good 

I looked again at the footage sent over by the studio

owner I saw myself staring down at those old dirty 

&nbsp;

Birkenstocks I did not recognize my boyfriend

came home and I told him what happened he was

sorry I lost my Birkenstocks I told him I bet she thinks

&nbsp;

I'm crazy she being the owner of the studio looking

through the footage Do these look like my shoes to you?

I asked holding up the old brown Birkenstocks “Yes”

&nbsp;

he said and then it dawned on me what I had done

&nbsp;

&nbsp;

![image1](/assets/images/issues/issue4/posts/ClaireDougherty-NotMyBirkenstocks/1.png)

&nbsp;

![image2](/assets/images/issues/issue4/posts/ClaireDougherty-NotMyBirkenstocks/2.png)

Not My Birkenstocks

![image1](/assets/images/issues/issue4/posts/SPaul-Sestina/1.gif)

Sestina

There is something that happens to me in LA that keeps happening to me in LA. Most recently, it was at the Beverly Center. Not my favorite mall but big enough to accidentally spend a day in. I was in Forever 21, which actually went bankrupt in 2019, closed 200 stores, and now goes by XXI Forever.

“Yo,” he said, thumbing a white belt that held up white jeans way below his ass. Way above his ears sat a beanie, all rolled up like a flattened condom. He was pretty like a lesbian but not one I wanted to talk to. Plus, I needed to go home and write my movie.

“Hey,” I offered, “Sup?” God. My sleeper impulse to be a chill girl had activated. 

“You got some fine ass…” he paused, rubbing his hands like a fly, “shoes.” 

“Oh,” I stammered. He shook his head devilishly, beanie barely holding on. “Thank you,” I smiled. “I like your… hat.” He laughed so I laughed. Then he stepped closer and I backed up to look at my watch. “Oh wow. I didn't know the time is *that*!” 

I started moving like a cartoon, pointing at my watch face, shrugging and aw-shucks-ing. “Sorry, oof, I gotta—” then finger-gunned toward the exit. 

“You really gonna leave without letting me get your number?” It's amazing when people actually talk like that. 

“Oh, well,” I blushed, “You know, I…have a boyfriend.” I did, at the time. For the most part. 

“Aight,” he muttered, adjusting his rimless shades. “I see you, I see you.” Not missing a beat, he rebounded, “Well, listen, I'm an artist. You should follow me on Instagram. My name's—” 

****

“Yo! Yo! Yo!” A middle-aged white man shouted outside a CVS in Hollywood. It was day 62 of a particularly long Adderall shortage. Without it, I have a hard time with time. The pharmacist had said something about the “supply chain.” On hold with insurance, I'd purchased two pairs of glasses on a BOGOHO sale. I really needed to go home, work on my movie. Maybe outline that script. But this guy was yelling at me across the lot. “What up chica!” He wore a wife beater and was blasting rap music. “Bet I can guess yo' favorite color!” Leaning against his car, he nodded at mine. Burnt orange like my sweatshirt, and also my hair. 

It was my boyfriend's car. He bought it off Craigslist after doing something with an NFT which, like the supply chain, is a thing I do not understand. I was fiddling with the keys. He had two, only one of which worked. Why have a key that doesn't work? I'd stopped questioning after all his recent success. Clearly he'd figured something out that I hadn't.

The CVS guy thought I hadn't heard him. “Bet I can guess your favorite color!” 

“Yup,” I half-shouted. “You got me there…” 

“Ayy!” he yelled, gesturing into his backseat, thrusting his hips. I quickly tried the other key. 

He was still yelling and thrusting when I finally unlocked the car. As I got in, he begged.

“Hey! Hey wait! I'm an artist!” I paused, door open. He pointed into his car. “This is me! This is my music!” He smiled so proudly. “You got Insta? You should follow me! Yooo, c'mon! My handle is—” 

I shut the door. That wasn't even the first time. 

The first time happened right after I moved to LA. My boyfriend and I had decided to go bowling in Highland Park. This was after he came to visit from Miami, developed a severe phobia of planes, and consequently moved in. He wanted to take me out that night, do something fun, an *activity*, but was blindsided by the lane rate. I assured him we didn't need to bowl, it was overrated. This was B.NFT. Pre-crypto cash out, after which he would move into a house in Silver Lake with central AC, a massive flat screen, and both his twenty-seven-year-old creative business partners. Lucky for us it was Sunday, which meant free karaoke at the bar next door. Inside, a short woman in bootcut jeans was finishing a boisterous rendition of “Lady Marmalade.” Everyone in the crowd, all seven of us, cheered like it was a real concert. Out of breath, she climbed off the stage and I leaned down to shout, “That was awesome!” She beamed and I felt good for complimenting her.

“I'm an artist! Singer/songwriter!” she said, pointing to my phone. “You can follow me!” I smiled like I couldn't hear her. But she got up on her tiptoes, “Here! I'll put my name in.” With that, she snatched my phone, opened Instagram, and typed her username. Jessica underscore music underscore a series of random numbers had way more followers than me. She wasn't *that* good at singing. Plus, I was prettier. I atoned for these thoughts as she smashed “Follow” on her profile from my phone.

“I just moved to LA! Nothing on the books yet, but you can come to my shows!” She waved at me like you would a fan, and left with her posse of three gays. The bar got quiet. She left before I could tell her that I'd also just moved to LA, I was also an artist, and I had this great idea for a movie I hadn't written yet, so yeah, she could follow me also. 

I imagined what it would be like. Saying that out loud. “Follow me.” You're not supposed to do that. You're supposed to *plant the seeds* of a seemingly chill relationship that can maybe, weather-permitting, *bloom* into a mutual respect that can then one day, hopefully, *blossom* into a “Follow.” 

Weeks later, script untouched, I was shopping again at a store I only go to alone. Brandy Melville. Just ‘cuz when I'm there, I have to act younger than I am. Otherwise I feel like a pedophile. All the shopgirls are in high school and the clients are middle schoolers. But they make a great basic tee. I was trying one on when a girl asked if I needed help. The dressing room was packed, so for the sake of time I'd thrown it on over my shirt. But it was tighter than expected; I couldn't quite get it off. I complimented the employee's makeup to distract from my situation. 

“Thanks!” she said, “I did it myself.” *Yeah*... I thought. 

“No way!” I exclaimed.

She nodded, “I'm an artist, actually.” The shirt was stuck at my neck. By the time I ripped it off, her phone was hovering in front of my face. “Most people follow my TikTok but I post more art stuff on Insta. You can follow me!” I gasped at the screen. 

“Oh my god, yeah! Totally.” I'd be one of hundreds of thousands of her followers. “So fun, I will.” I did not. 

Later that very same week I was avoiding my script at Daiso in Hollywood, when I heard a familiar voice. Through the sticker aisle, I saw her. Brandy girl. She was recording her friend. They looked super cute and I regretted not following her like I said I would. Maybe I should say something, I thought. Maybe they want someone else to film, so they could both be in it. I could shoot a little, I have some time. Not a lot of course, I still have to write my movie…but female filmmakers should uplift one another. 

Rounding the corner I waved. “Hey!” She turned. 

“Hiii!” I was about to ask how she'd been when she said, “Sorry, we're just finishing something for my TikTok. Is it ok if we film in here?” She batted her long fake eyelashes until I realized she was asking me for adult permission. 

I wasn't wearing a clerk apron. Did she not see my basket full of stationery? All the index cards I was going to pin to my wall to visualize my outline to write my script to make my movie? Did she not remember me at all? 

“Oh, yeah,” I said. “It's all good. You girls have fun.” They thanked me and I abandoned my cart. 

Fleeing next door, I consoled myself inside the chaos of Ross: Dress for Less. I don't usually buy anything there. They've got good deals but the line is always endless. More security guards than check-out clerks. Everyone on edge. Someone always yelling. But it can be soothing, I've found, to watch other people freak out. 

****

After promoting every single one of his social media pages, beanie boy smiled. 

“So you got the boyfriend. I gotchu…you on Insta then? Can I at least look from afar?”

I thought about my Instagram. My page isn't exactly what he'd be looking for. It was more for work, and I hadn't posted in a while. Too busy not writing. I really needed to write this script to make this movie so I could post about it. The storm cloud of every unfinished project hovered, and the mall darkened. 

“I don't really post that much,” I explained to the top of his head. 

He nodded, sliding his phone out of his pocket. “That's ok. You an artist, huh.” 

Oh my god. I blushed. Yes! I wanted to scream. He continued. “Lemme get your @.” 

Hands shaking, I typed into his outstretched iPhone until my page came up. I turned the screen around. It was up to him. He didn't have to do anything with it. He looked at his screen for a long time. I watched my videos in the reflection of his glasses. It was hard, watching him watch them, without any volume on. He was silent for a long time. 

“You're sort of an underground artist. Quirked up vibe. I like that. That's dope.” I watched his demeanor shift away from flirting. 

I began to tell him that those were just silly videos. Nothing compared to this movie I wanted to make. “You know,” I began. But before I could get into it, he cut me off. 

“On God, when I was sixteen, I was in an accident that left me paralyzed. Couldn't move from the waist down for almost a year. Thought I'd never walk again. I flatlined for twenty seconds. So, I'm one of the rare people who can say they died and came back.” 

“Oh my gosh,” I said, “wow.” 

“Yeah. I rap but I also got a lot of stuff cooking, you know?” Sure, I thought. “We should collab. When I couldn't move my legs, the only thing I could control were my thoughts. So I became very emotionally in tune. I feel that's why my art connects. You might have that too. You know, since I got this following, all these people reach out. I usually don't respond. But there's this team, they really want me to make a movie. About my life and everything. For kids maybe, I dunno. But I could use a vibe like you.” 

“Wow,” I said again. I would do anything for somebody to want me to make a movie. Any movie. 

“I'll have my team reach out.” I nodded as he began drafting the DM. Holy crap. It was happening. Finally happening. This is why you go to the mall. This is why you move to LA. “Ima DM you - so we don't forget.”

“Totally,” was all I could say. And, “Thank you so much.” 

He smiled again, “Bet. Glad I met you. But I actually gotta dip. We'll be in touch!” I watched in awe as he did all these things I couldn't seem to, like exit the mall. 

Alone again at XXI Forever, I checked his page. 375k followers. A perfect grid layout. A checkerboard of motivational speech, black text on white background, motivational rap, black text on white background. They're his own quotes, the text. Watermarked. I clicked on one. Three days ago he'd posted: “Don't let yesterday use up today.” Woah. 2,971 likes. Ok. Another one: “Never run away from problems. Let problems run away from you.” I had to leave the mall. Face my problems! Or maybe I should DM him about the movie. Maybe he could help me, career-wise. He had all those followers. Then I noticed a fresh post on his feed from seven minutes ago. Hadn't we just been talking then? Black text on white background. 1,756 likes. “Girls with regular jobs and natural bodies still winning. Don't let this social media sh*t fool you.” 

I closed Instagram. Put my phone deep down in my purse. Finally walked toward the exit. What was it that I had to do again? Write more? Post more? I knew I had to go home. And so, I crossed the street to Old Navy. I heard they have some great new stuff.

Follow Me

The elevator smelled like piss.

I looked over at the real estate agent and he shot me a nervous smile. “One of the women must’ve peed,” he said, moving his hand over his crotch while making a wavy motion with his fingers. I laughed. Maybe living in an old folks’ home would have a certain charm. I pictured a future version of myself, greeting an elderly neighbor as she passed by me in the hallway. She’d bow her head towards me, deeply. Then she’d wet herself. Liquid would pool into her rubber clogs, the urine dark and stormy.

As we rose to the 8th floor, the real estate agent explained how the building provided coin-operated washing machines but no dryers. The tenants preferred to air-dry their laundry from a clothesline. “You’ll find that most of the residents tend to stay confined to their rooms. They only come out when absolutely necessary.” He played with a crack in his plastic phone case, avoiding my eyeline. “No one here wants to be a burden.”

&nbsp;

Room 807 was the only available unit for non-geriatrics. A torn piece of caution tape hung from the door knob. The transom window above was browned with soot. “Go ahead,” said the real estate agent. “It’s open.”

The apartment appeared sterile underneath its sole fluorescent bulb. It brought to mind a hospital food court. Aluminum bars covered the floor-to-ceiling windows, drilled firmly into the walls. “For safety reasons,” said the real estate agent, tapping his knuckles against the bars. “So that no one falls out.” 

The windows in my university dorm had been similarly bolted shut. Plexiglass walls had covered the library’s atrium. A student once climbed over the barrier and jumped to his death, seven stories below. They raised the plexiglass ten feet higher for the following semester. There’s a city proposal to gate off New York’s subway stations, to prevent people from jumping. They’d put barriers at every platform edge, with electric doors that would open when the trains arrived and then close when they departed. The Tokyo metro had this system installed a few years back. People still jump on the tracks there. It just requires a bit of work. 

My ex once told me about these two thirteen-year-old girls in Tokyo who held hands as they leapt in front of an oncoming train. I’ve since been unable to get them out of my head. I’ve replayed the imagined death scene over and over again, so much so that the teenage girls have become 3D renders in my mind. Well, not in their entirety. Not with an exact likeness. Parts of them are left unfinished, purposefully so, leaving space for personal projection. But more minute details are all filled-in, made glossy and pristine in my 4K daydreaming. Their tartan skirts billow in the subway airflow. Their tiny fingernails turn florid when squeezed. Their pale legs smear in the motion blur.

I see the pair’s final jump as a gentle act. Not abrupt. Not in any way violent. Like a child’s careful release from a playground swing, they fell soft and easy upon the tracks. But I always get stuck on the *hands*. I can’t help but zoom-in tight on this point. It’s as if their clasped hands held the secret message behind the whole thing. Because what it says to me is this: these girls did not go at it alone. They clung to each other. Their last act was not a jump, but rather, the holding of a position. The irreducible position of two girls, side-by-side, with their hands intertwined.

The real estate agent cleared his throat. “And can I ask about your credit score?” I lied and told him I had a guarantor. He nodded. “I’ll send you the rental application. It’s a competitive listing.”

&nbsp;

On my way down, in the elevator, I tried to focus on the pee smell. But my thoughts kept going back to the two girls. What happened to them when they were younger? I needed to know the exact point in which the seed had been planted. When the ideation took root.

Is it possible that, on some late winter day, when the girls were about six or seven on their way home from school, carefully watched over by their parents, huddled at the edge of the platform, covering their ears as the train screamed into the station, watching the evening commuters shuffle in and then out, the screen doors opening and then closing behind them, as the crowded passenger cart lurched forward, as fathers gripped their daughters by the shoulders, do you think, in such a moment, the girls might have asked themselves: *just what are they holding us back from?*

Incontinence

You were sitting by the window in the afternoon

and it was snowing. I knelt on the floor.

No matter what I said, you wouldn't stop trying

to get out of your chair. I said, she'll be back soon, 

she had to go downstairs but she'll come back.

You had a hand on each arm of the chair

and you pushed as hard as you could, hunched over, 

your arms shaking until you collapsed.

You couldn't lift yourself at all.

I bent forward so you would see my face

so like your own, so you would know you knew me

and that I was with you in the room. 

Your eyes were blue and blank. 

You were looking into another world. It was quiet

except for the sound of you trying to get out of the room

to find your wife. Except for my voice

saying we only have to wait a little longer,

not much longer. You didn't stop trying to reach her

and I stopped trying to reach you. I knelt on the floor

watching you try over and over,

your shirt damp with sweat.

&nbsp;

*

&nbsp;

It might be selfish to want to tell you 

what happened when you were gone 

from your body, to want you to know 

what it was like, but you were there 

in the room and it's strange 

for you not to know. I want to say I'm sorry

I was sometimes afraid of you 

because when I believed you weren't there

in your body, I didn't know. It was impossible

to know. Today I went into the room 

and it was empty. Every room is empty of you.

In every room, I know you by your absence.

&nbsp;

*

&nbsp;

Twenty-one days after you died, I wrote:

I will give the world back to him, 

the empty sky, the small cold river 

running into a grate at the edge of the road.

I will give him back to the world. 

&nbsp;

*

&nbsp;

I don’t know where that certainty came from 

or when I lost it. Today is two hundred and ninety-eight days.

I wear your old shirts and listen to your radio shows,

take care of what you would want taken care of:

I clean the kitchen, try to get her to eat. 

I go into your workshop and open 

the drawers of your father’s toolbox 

as you might have done after he died. 

I turn the thimble of a small silver micrometer 

and look for something to measure. I sit in your chair

at your table and try to understand how everything

outlasted you. I listen to your voicemails.

There is one you left when you thought I’d left for good 

without saying goodbye. I had only gone to the store.

&nbsp;

*

&nbsp;

Last night, the clouds were carried off in a current 

and the sky broke apart, and you already know

the light that came through, 

otherwise I couldn’t tell you. When I came inside, 

I saw myself in the mirror

as if I was you, and you looked at me,

and it was the first time I saw my face

after nearly a year apart. 

&nbsp;

*

&nbsp;

Today I sat on the steps and remembered you

patiently digging a grave for my rabbit.

Its body lay in a shoebox near the trees

and it was raining. You dug a deep grave, deeper

than necessary. You wanted to do it right.

But once it was done, I sat at the window 

and stared at the edge of the yard, imagining 

the cardboard dissolving in the damp ground 

and the rabbit unprotected. You tried to tell me 

why I shouldn’t be afraid, that he wasn’t there in his body 

in the shoebox in the ground

but I was still afraid, so to put me at ease

you went back into the rain and dug up the shoebox 

and took it to your workshop. You built a small pine coffin, 

measuring and marking the wood 

with your pencil, sawing exactly along each line.

You let me stroke the cold soft ears again

then nailed the lid shut.

&nbsp;

*

&nbsp;

I throw myself against each day I’m trapped in.

I go for walks and try to figure out if you still exist: 

if you exist in my memories and each memory

is a world that still exists, then somewhere 

we’re sitting together on a train 

through a cold marsh, the cattails rustling 

in a burning blue sky, and I don’t know if you can hear me 

when I turn to tell you that sometimes I miss you so much 

I can’t keep walking. I watch branch shadows 

wave over the ground like a net.

&nbsp;

*

&nbsp;

We were sitting together by the empty fireplace. 

You were on the phone. You said, “I’m here with—” 

and looked to me. I couldn’t say it. You were the one 

who gave me my name. Outside it was dark, and I imagined

swimming in the lake, in the silence pulling at the center of you

into which you disappeared, slowly 

at first, then all at once.

&nbsp;

*

&nbsp;

I never got used to it. By the time I could account 

for what was lost, I had lost more.

Loss that didn’t seem possible. 

A storm already overhead 

and moving faster. At a certain point, 

we put a lock on every door. I slept with a key 

around my neck and sometimes woke to the sound 

of my door rattling in its frame.

Now I look to the door and imagine you 

on the other side, and I want to let you in.

&nbsp;

*

&nbsp;

Early on, we were walking down the driveway

and you told me there were people in the shadows

at the edge of your vision, sitting on the steps.

You said they always disappeared 

when you turned to look. When they came into the house,

you couldn’t figure out what they wanted, like the morning

you came into the kitchen and found them

waiting for you. They would only say

that they had been waiting for hours.

You were afraid. You tried to tell me 

what was happening, but I could only understand 

parts of what you said. They’re angry with me, you said.

I don’t know why they’re angry with me.

&nbsp;

*

&nbsp;

You forgot that the house you were in

was your own. You forgot how to walk, how to eat.

In the end, lying on your bed, your hands were clasped

and you were mouthing words to the ceiling. Your voice, 

when it came, was like wind. We lifted you upright 

and fed you. You were in pain. We arranged pillows 

and blankets, tried to make you comfortable. We told you 

you were safe. Slowly you looked at us 

and whispered. We couldn’t understand

but we bowed our heads to listen.

One night, I asked if you could hear me

and you nodded. Now, I look to where 

you were, and I don’t need to know 

if you can hear me to keep repeating 

what I need you to know.

&nbsp;

*

&nbsp;

Early in the afternoon, in the hallway

she said, I think he’s gone

and I followed her into the room.

We sat with your body for hours. 

Your wife, your son, your daughter. 

I wasn’t afraid. I held your hand. 

I looked at your hands. I tried to prove to myself

that I had you memorized.

We sat with you and talked to you

and looked at you, and looked at you

until a man and a woman arrived 

from the funeral home. 

They wrapped you in your bedsheets 

and lifted you onto a stretcher. We carried you 

down the stairs of the house.

Carefully, they put you in the car 

and shut the door. We watched 

as the car pulled out of the driveway

and turned into the road.

&nbsp;

*

&nbsp;

Sometimes, suddenly and briefly

you appeared, though it happened less 

towards the end. Like a few seconds of music

in relentless static, a clear familiar phrase.

Only weeks before you died, I heard you 

calling for me from the next room

like you were trying to wake me from a dream.

Your voice was strong and clear.

I heard the voice I remember calling my name.

From an Empty House

My husband came back one night. He told me he was in love, that they'd hit a rough patch but he was hopeful. I almost couldn't believe he was alive. 

He showed me slide film from his archive on a little light table—of beach scenes, dandelions and fireworks, microscopic bacteria, cranes, bridges, and boats, Renaissance-era medicine. He played records and we drank cocktails. He didn't ask any questions, only wanted to know if I would like more ice. After we kissed on the roof, I descended the ladder and my skirt blew up to my elbows. He fed me a wedge salad. When we kissed in bed, I wanted to say I loved him again. When we slept, I dreamt that we attended a ten-hour screening of a slide film about Jesus Christ. Then, dreamt of near-fatal accidents in an Olympic swimming pool. The olympians were rescued from the deep end by paramedics, one by one. They were strong, beautiful, almost dead.

***

In another dream, my husband crashed family Christmas on some mysterious cocktail of substances. He had been writing art criticism and publishing small pamphlets with secret messages for me to find. He looked like shit, wouldn't whisper, wouldn't leave. He melted into a chair and made inebriated pronouncements from the back of the room. He was wearing an old, favorite sweater. My family went on celebrating, but with restraint and even a measure of politeness. They pretended not to see or hear. My husband had recently returned from our old vacation spot, he told me, where he had meant to die alone. Something about a gun. He looked up at me from the chair he was melted into and said, “No one should ever travel further than New Jersey.”

***

Once upon a time, I was up all night next to my sleeping husband, wondering how my body could be so full of goo.

I suspected the culprit was my husband's work. The cycle of crisis, resolution, celebration. He had been explaining the psychology of the market, its emotional turmoil, the zero sum game, etc. when one particular emergency hit. The market rewards strong stomachs, he was saying. Around 5am, I tried to locate a free PDF of the Truman Capote story in which the author follows his maid around for a whole day of work. “A Day's Work.” The author and his maid get high together at the end. I couldn't find it, so I read scraps of articles and poetry on Instagram until I became so agitated, I had to leave. “I think I'm leaving,” I told my husband, and he said, “Are you disturbed?” “I'm upset, but we can't talk about that now.” 

Another day, the culprit was a painting in my husband's studio. I didn't recognize it. The portrait was so striking, so alive with personality, that I worried about its subject, who must have once been a real, full-bodied person. She was intelligent. She was impenetrable! Her staring was frank, calculating, rudely personal. I couldn't exactly relate to her, though she might have been my more beautiful cousin. It could have been a matter of taste and age that separated us. She would always be just a bit older, taller, and more expensive. She might have been European. 

She stared and stared one morning, all day and all night once, out of her one dark eye and her other misty gray one. The gray eye was flat, focused. Her blonde-green hair matched the strip of wallpaper above her. She knew exactly where to sit. She understood Downtown People and the big deal about getting dressed. She was amazing in bed, or she hardly ever had it. Both possibilities were devastating.

***

I was startled by my husband's strangeness. I loved him more than words, and I was jealous of this love. 

My husband addressed my nose like a person. He prepared the coffee, and when the coffee got cold, he made it hot again. 

Meanwhile, the live demo of the cyber truck failed when the shock-proof glass shattered. The hopped-up commentators enjoyed donuts, milkshakes, chicken wings and barbecue sauce. It all streamed like poems. 

To be so certain of my husband's sweet mysteries was to leave this world behind; to say there was an otherwise; to be so moved, disturbed, or anything at all.

What used to thrill me: the way my big husband made language flip over itself. Him pacing the room, full of ideas and experience. 

My husband thought he was exceptionally handsome, but his pants were down when it didn't count. He didn't have the bandwidth for oceanic feeling. Even if I telegraphed it, he'd say I was making “demands.” He was responding to other messages. 

Then, he was a park full of deer at night. What happened when I was young or a story my mother told me. A big dog. Good habits. A genius who called himself eccentric. Cold like a star. He pretended to eat my nose and he explained the market to me. He was a big baby. He was blonde.

I appreciated him musically, aesthetically, synesthetically, athletically, and historically-speaking. He should have appealed more to my senses than anybody, but my senses had nothing to do with myself.

Of course, there are other problems — what happens to children, what happens to produce. The baseboards. The thesaurus. And I'm afraid there are words too expansive to be employed. The ones I want to use.

*What is the point of all this,* asked a friend recently. *The whole market is only refuse and leftovers. The poem isn't salable.*

I almost give up on poetry. Like travel, groceries and voting. I anticipate my expulsion from the realm of poetry and still, I suppose myself over and over.

***

Some feel more desirous when they are alone. Some are patiently curious in their longing. With readerly intent, some enjoy peace, even intimacy in solitude. It's delirium for me, alone with my visions. 

I take up nasty arguments with myself to stave off solipsism. Such problems of mind simulate matters of ethical concern. 

For years I thought I had panic attacks. Then the doctor told me I was throwing emotional tantrums. I needed to practice getting a grip.

I'm not interested in information. I'm afraid of my own happiness all laid out like berries in summer. 

Somehow, I still consider myself steady. I'm an efficiency expert, alert to my choices and to leaps in quantum time. 

Now and then I am lovely, lovely, lovely. I am sweet and kind with a clever shard of ice in my heart. They say I'm a kissable fox. They speak it all over my body early in the morning before they go.

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