This limited-edition artist's book was made using discarded photocopy facsimiles of collection materials from the Kislak Center for Special Collections, as well as an original short story, freshly laserjet printed also at the Kislak Center. Thank you to the University of Pennsylvania Libraries for your material support of my art habits.
Mini poetry chapbook about where hands go, why they change, and what they make.
1. The card was signed with a tight little "Best," no name, even, and I wanted to throw it away immediately, as if crumpling it into the tiniest ball in my hand could make it not have existed in the first place.
2. I have a lazy spiral of bruises across my limbs and back, ripe spots on my hips and puffy tender halos on my upper arms.
3. The single cloud moved slowly. I felt, unfairly, that everything I accomplished was a marathon.
4. She stood on the sidewalk sucking her teeth in disapproval at the hipster con artists with their glass mason jars of coffee.
5. Peppery and sweet, the first bite made her forget everything.
6. An aching jaw instantly replaced my other problems.
7. During the procession I watched the burner traveling the hall, leaving behind an intricate embroidery on air of loops and curls. The rich scent of its smoke permeated the crowd and I started to feel it rising from my clothing, entangled in my hair, as if I emanated it myself instead of just being a visitor to the space.
8. Dropping my hands, I couldn't remember the original joke.
9. The table was glossy but scratched in places, and covered with a dusty white linen.
10. It was not weird for me to become other people, but as she practiced it was strange to watch her do it; the familiar face stretching or going blank, freckles disappearing behind pale make-up or hair pulled so tightly back it made me touch my own temples in sympathy. I knew it was painful. But her characters shone out of her face like a lamp behind a screen, my friend turned into just the frame for these visitors. I stilled to watch, and felt myself disappear. The more she was a stranger the more I became invisible and listening, not a person myself-- a wall or cushion or picture frame that silently regarded her long heated rambles. Who was more trapped there, her in the drama, or me in watching? I had never gone that deep when I was the performer. But then she paused mid-turn to catch my eye, and winked just at me. The blood flooded back into my veins.
11. It took me two years to crawl back from that cracked place.
12. Please do not lock bicycles to the sculpture.
13. I didn't even leave my bed until she leaned on the buzzer and made me go sit on the sidewalk with her. In those last hours of the afternoon the flat wet asphalt on our street was filled up with sun, reflecting black and brilliant gold, stabbing me through the eyes like the whole world was reproaching my hangover. The neighborhood kids kept shrieking.
14. He's never asked for a favor like that and it makes me hungry and wary at the same time.
15. They are clearly waiting on the corner but when the light changes they don't move.
16. Nothing really changes. In the night I woke over and over with a fist clenched around my ponytail, pulling it tight across my throat. How do you threaten someone with what lives in her own home?
17. The train squealed into the station and I looked up, suddenly happy. "Get down from there!"
18. For a long time I felt different.
19. He couldn't imagine it and then he could, looking at the rows and rows of empty bottles, dust collecting on some, arranged as if they were too precious to throw away. The room was bare otherwise. Would it be a release to finally, only, desperately need one thing?
20. We spiraled across the ice together, occasionally rejoining to touch hands.
21. I can't afford to travel that far, though I agree it is long past time for us to meet.
22. But to me the distinction is essential.
23. Irregular glass stars and little chewed-up slips of paper surrounded us; I walked carefully.
24. Where she lifted her glass there was already a dark greasy ring on the table, and I let out an involuntary whine.
25. The cat was implacable.
26. Outside we leaned on the disintegrating stone wall and took big greedy gulps of clean air, too tired to laugh or panic.
27. From a certain distance it all looks like frost.
28. They handed her a styrofoam cup and told her to wait for a few hours.
29. The lights went off and I realized I was glowing.
30. Nothing inside me unbends.
31. Actually, I totally remember all of it!
A paper fortune teller is a folk tradition among children for predicting the future or other games. I played with this format for a series of interactive poems:
