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Ivan’s First List
On the hook in a locked stall.
Jammed halfway down the pipe.
In deepest stacks, in footnotes.
Ripe for the stealing, in the field.
Where someone would walk a dog.
Among forlorn asparagus on a fence.
Under the trays of a Polish bakery.
Scraping off the remnants of a sauce.
You can hear the trains from there.
Digging beneath an uncrossable road.
Asleep on the margin of the road.
Beyond vision, with wounded cats.
In a place between places, the coat
closet under the stairs. Albumen
clinging to the cracked shell.
Thrown around the marble horse.
Lost in the unstoppable victory.
Prone across a reeking couch.
At the gallery seats in the Hall.
On a stool in the hotel bar.
Soothing the scorched grass.
In the putty that filled the gash.
On the red chin of a vulture.
In the mouth of an ant on a feather.
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Ivan’s Exhibit A
Zippered up and punctured,
soft as a spine, the living
pass it between their seats,
pressing the plastic against it
to see clearly this which guides
to the center and quick, clean rooms
below. Pearl, opal, Roman glass.
Weapon, cup, or jewel.
In sleeping quarters, great
state halls. Chained around
the neck or ankle, buried
in the ear. From here we know
the center, the water,
the body, the heart.
And this, this,
locked from the heat
was said to be salting them all.
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