Fifty-nine hours before dying, Hermann Ploucquet greets the postman in the doorway. There is a letter from his mother and another from his friend, the physicist Hippolyte Fizeau, but none from Her Majesty, Queen Victoria. No doubt he pretended not to be disappointed, and I can imagine him chatting with the postman . . .
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“When Natasha began having sex with Jimmy Walczyk, I became an ocean swimmer. With goggles and a towel I’d walk to Will Rogers Beach and, jumping in at Lifeguard Stand 18, swim a mile north to the rock jetty below the Palisades cliffs—which was danger. I wanted connectivity to that danger; I . . .
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“i thought i saw your face, your unmistakablegait on the 6 train—i’m wrong.blessings refused maybeor imagined.”—from “on Survivor’s Guilt, ending with ‘Ruff Ryders’ Anthem’ by DMX,” Volume 63, Issue 2 (Summer 2022) Tell us about one of the first pieces you wrote.All I can remember is that I was 8 or 9 . . .
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“Denon’s mew position will turn out to be eminently strategic. When he writes to Isabelle that everyone was pleased with his appointment, he is being ironic. On the other hand, what he is quite right about is that it’s going to keep him busy constantly. An exhausting job.”—from “The Masked Baron’s Louvre” . . .
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“It was the summer of loss spanning the exact distancemy disease could reach—the degrees of longitudeand latitude, lonely numbers like decorationsfor a forgotten graduation party in a church basement.”—from “Diary Entry #5: Self-Portrait as Revelations Tell us about one of the first pieces you wrote.One of the first poems I ever wrote . . .
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Evelina looked for peace and quiet. To find it, she woke up before everybody else: before her father who had to get to the fields an at early hour, before her mother and grandmother who had chores to do, before her older siblings who went to school, and before the younger ones . . .
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It could happen. Once it happens.Earlier, later. Closer todaybut not to you. You’ll survive because you ran, because you hid.Because you were first. Because last.Because alone. Because the others.—from “Mass Shootings Are Actually Pretty Rare, But Here’s What to Do If You’re Ever in One,” Volume 63, Issue 2 (Summer 2022) What . . .
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“It is the usual disposition of corners, to be polyvocal, and so, between the voices of future morbidities and past registers, I contribute my current grammar to the orchestra of echoes.”—from “In This Small Place,” Volume 63, Issue 2 (Summer 2022) Tell us about one of the first pieces you wrote.I must . . .
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You’re dead for so long and young just a little. So why notkiss if there’s kissing on offer? There isn’t much timeto be beautiful, and even less to know it. Even now,you are losing your poreless luster.—from “Middle-Aged Sonnet,” Volume 63, Issue 2 (Summer 2022) Tell us about one of the first . . .
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I found a pensión in the Barri Gòtic, not far from La Rambla. An old woman with a limp welcomed me and took my money and showed me to my room. I seem to remember that one of her shoes had a thick heel and sole (to compensate for, I suppose, an . . .
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