Sarah Legow

Accu-pizza says that November will be the wettest month on record, and, if I'm interpreting this cheese bubble correctly, that next-president Scott Walker will launch a preemptive strike against North Korea. Also your dog will die. Or else have triplets. [The lyrics to your favorite song] [Your last four grocery receipts] [Your report on Oklahoma, grade: 4, grade: B+] [X-rays of your teeth] [Soggy balloons] a letter from you to [you]

I fried these eggs three times, washed them delicately with rose water, starched them around the edges, just how you like it. Faint smell of lavender. Ignoble, all agree. O the ignobililty, I could write a fucking cookbook out of it. My hands, where did you put them. Annexed, again. Karl marks pages in the phonebooks, which country to invade next, which vacuum cleaner supply store to liberate? exit exorcism stage left

Gonzalo is sitting behind me on the bus. I am writing down my dreams. I barfed on the table. The waiter thinks I did it for attention. I am abandoned by a friend at the department store. I have reconciled with my wife. My dreams are writing me down. They’re doing it for attention. My dreams have barfed on the table. My dreams ran off with my wife, and abandoned me at the department store. My dreams stole my seat on the bus. My dreams reconciled with the waiter, and barfed with Gonzalo at the department store. I abandoned them, for attention. Liberace, libidinal lunkhead. Your t-shirts covered in pitstains, every last one. Armpit crust, even the cannibal frowns, furrows brow, drives off in his Volkswagen in disgust. Sheer disgust, though he secretly relishes it, with his sausages.

a pickpocket, a

conjuror.

a thief who de-

votes his attention to the poultry

yard.

stolen metal ;

a saucepan.

pieces

of raw meat.

Betty Page sings along to the juke box, alone in her room. Young Richard Nixon sings the same song, at the same time, in a perfect harmony. A celestial angel hears the chorus, rejoices in its heart at the unity of their spirits. The coincidence goes unnoticed on earth. Each next sneezes, flosses their teeth, combs their hair while looking anxiously in the mirror. The mirror reflects a vision of unity, which will last a full seventeen minutes. In these seventeen minutes, no one is murdered, there are only two rapes and one abduction, and one hundred fifty three couples have simultaneously orgasms. Mankind reaches its pinnacle. Vegetables taste, briefly, more sweet, and light bulbs burn at wattages above their manufactured rates. The mosquito population plummets worldwide, and itches stop itching.

One day as I was walking home a man I'd never seen before said to me, "I wish I had what you had! Always smiling." I wish I had what I have, too.

to

steal a portmanteau.

to

steal a pocket-handkerchief.

Of zoos, loss, ‘n morons Of spoons, spools, oblong sp’toons --(oops) Of loony toons, lost, lo! Of orbs, clogs, ‘n moony dolts, --(how hollow) Of sots ‘n blobs ‘n knobby soft spots, Off ‘n on, top to bottom, world.org (…ok?) (oh gosh,) (o horrors!) --shoo! No hoochy coochy, not now.

— " A concealment, a pretext, a

pretence, an ostensible manner

of accounting for what you

really wish to conceal ;

a sham bidder at

auctions ; a confederate in

thimblerig or three cards

It is a horse and a muffin. It is a muffin. And equally a horse. Equally is it a horse and a muffin. Fringe theology. I roll over in bed. The song is finished. Tanks roll over my bed as the theology dissolves. Prussian artillery gather round the fringe, while a lone deaf horse wanders unobserving. Open fire and a song of bullets. It is finished in moments. Quiet. The sky is a watery white. I am equally horrified and relieved. The horse’s blood, drained from its body, congeals in the form of a muffin.

1.

How Sarah is related to Sarah. Sarah is the Sarah in the short grey dress. Sarah is, too. Sarah makes Sarah’s favorite meal. Sarah scrapes the leftovers down the drain. Sarah cheats on Sarah’s taxes. They blame it on Sarah. Sarah’s claims, which isn’t. Sarah is with, but won’t.

Chapter 37: Life takes its shirt off.

thought streams, desires // all that good stuff, um // visions why are we here? like, let’s just get rid of this sentence, we don’t need it should we talk about the drainage? // or is that just like too much detail // that’s like a weakness // but what about the drainage weakness, just that there’s like a lot of it? it’s such, it’s so [laughter] it’s incredibly sad [laughter] like, billionaires [laughter] grilled cheese! [laughter] really obscure [laughter] it was a disaster, and

2.

Sarah is jointly court-ordered Sarah is putative/alleged Sarah is the guarded of Sarah is the unrelated

Your apartheid, the most gentle, so urgently gentle, sweet cyanide. Your lungs, I haven’t seen them, not once.