Table of Contents
The Mother of Mermaids
What the Ancient Greek Sailors Knew 3
What Do You Want to Be When You Grow Up? 4
Echoes 5
Sibling Rivalry 7
A Very Asian Variation 8
Bird 9
On the Lesser-Known Uses of Meat Tenderizer 11
Private Rituals 12
Purses 14
Losing Myself in Art
Neurology Ward Sketchbook 17
Patti Smith, 1976 18
Deipnosophistae 19
To John Ashbery 20
The Ballad of Great-Uncle Chi 21
Posture 23
Woman behind the Lens 24
Women Who Conjure Owls 25
Venus Frigida 27
Golden Shovel in the Voice of Margot Begemann 28
Yellowed Weeds Deranged
Sirenian Sermon 31
The Morning after the Election 32
Gusanoz 34
Bird-Watching in the Aftermath 38
Quixotic 40
Dispatch from Hanover, New Hampshire 41
Capgras/Seagrass 42
How I Know Implicit Bias Exists 43
Please Don't Tell Me How the Story Ends 44
To a Physician Killed by Gun Violence 46
The Origami Master Breakfasts with His New Apprentice 47
The Fairy Tale Now Finished
The Twelve Dancing Princesses 51
The Reader 52
New York Living 53
A Failed Georgic 55
Rosebud, Pustule, Breast 56
I, Casimir Zorawski, a Mathematician of Poland, 57
¡Almas Hermanas Mías! 58
Deep men 59
November 61
Mania 62
I Sing: Holy
Homemade Eclipse Glasses 65
A Cultural Artifact 66
How We Met 67
Tinh Dô Tông 68
Waking from Anesthesia 69
A Life 70
Against Empiricism 71
Picky Picky 72
Standing between My Parents at Manatee Lagoon 73
We Are All at Least 50 Percent Water 74
Acknowledgments 75
