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My stepfather has gone out with a blanket to place over a doe’s body.

Stocking shelves, like serving, is a job that will not let go of your mind.

He was caught. Of course he was caught. He was always caught.

When the thugs from the bank showed, up my father laughed.

Lily hated Ray’s cancer. She couldn’t see it or cure it.

He was a child. He was dead. He was the shaft of a Long-tailed Astrapia.

My father then got partials implanted, which were later punched out.

When you are a father, want sons. There is some math in this.

“Can’t you see Hemingway’s having breakfast with his grandson?”

The child writes, Child, and is amazed at this word on the page.

I realized you were my fourth love, and the system was always doomed.

The scent of lighter fluid and tobacco drifted in through the window.

and there I was five-foot-four and most way old enough to drive

Sometimes I wonder if he—my father—looks back on that moment.

He says the word robbery and you don’t know if he’s asking or telling.

they released themselves so knowingly into the soft wet air

It was the day I told a lie that would embarrass me for years to come.

“This is no vacation,” I told friends and reluctant donors.

They were such dummkopfs they kicked out the Jews.

I never prayed before. Since this happened I’ve been praying every night.

Lean close and kiss each other: dig down as far as down goes.

It was a very strange dinner. I didn’t dare ask my parents questions.

Instead of attunement, I was given a pair of size 6 Toughskins.

No matter how hard I played, it was like I was performing inside a vacuum.

There was something that eluded me, that was always outside the frame.

Eleanor opened the door to Nick’s bedroom and felt breathless with fury.

I began to look for evidence of my father’s duplicity in his body.

The orderlies see him in the mirror and mistake it for his twin.