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Naïve to think this shimmering
gem would protect. My husband picked
a sapphire that glitters black at a distance.
The professor slicks back salt-
and-pepper hair, tugs up his pants by the belt.
We’re in public. Academic
coffee complete with neatly inked
questions in my notebook. He presses
gold-rimmed glasses closer
to his eyes, pledges bright letters
of rec. It’ll cost you, though.
My nervous laugh lingers like a puff
of smoke. That evening, he sends blushing
yellow faces. Texts stacked
with exclamation points like boys
in college send. An invitation
to a gala for poets with craft
drinks, four courses, vegan
options if I need them. This
is why he reads poems? This un-
blinding blisters. He wants me
in a cocktail dress, backless
if possible. Time to polish
bruise-blue stone sharpen my pen.
⟐ ⟐ ⟐ ⟐
Found Abecedarian: Your Guide to Total Health Care, 1996
Alive with ache. Absorb airborne applesauce.
Bounce buttocks. Bruise bursa red. Bone grow
Crooked. Cannot control charley horse, cold mist, clots.
Doses of dusky lips, slipped disks. Dizzy diagnosis:
Eggs, estrogen, lost elasticity. Excessive self-exams.
First intercourse — flame or flat soda? Gauze in gums,
Honey-colored hospital, injured and ill insured.
Jewels in lower jaw, kerosene-oiled knees, limbs leaking
Light. Lubricate metal rims and mottled memory.
Name nipples and navel. Organs ooze overnight —
Paw painkillers. Perspiration pearls on quick
Quadriceps. Ringworm. Rabies. Rubella.
Slumped, slurred speech. Tender tennis elbow.
Unable to unlock ulcers. Undressed lungs unfamiliar.
Vague aches, voltage, varnish. Vulnerable vessels.