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Note to the Reader
Copper Canyon Press encourages you to calibrate your settings by using the line of characters below, which optimizes the line length and character size:
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Please take the time to adjust the size of the text on your viewer so that the line of characters above appears on one line, if possible.
When this text appears on one line on your device, the resulting settings will most accurately reproduce the layout of the text on the page and the line length intended by the author. Viewing the title at a higher than optimal text size or on a device too small to accommodate the lines in the text will cause the reading experience to be altered considerably; single lines of some poems will be displayed as multiple lines of text. If this occurs, the turn of the line will be marked with a shallow indent.
Thank you. We hope you enjoy these poems.
This e-book edition was created through a special grant provided by the Paul G. Allen Family Foundation. Copper Canyon Press would like to thank Constellation Digital Services for their partnership in making this e-book possible.
No water, no life. No blue, no green.
oceanographer Sylvia Earle
Contents
3 On Listening to Your Teacher Take Attendance
4 The Origin of Feathers on My Windshield
6 Mr. Cass and the Crustaceans
12 When Lucille Bogan Sings “Shave ’Em Dry”
13 The Two Times I Loved You the Most on a Farm
14 Aubade with Cutlery and Crickets
15 When You Select the Daughter Card
16 At the Pumpkin Festival My Lips Burn Bright
17 Self-Portrait as Niagara Falls in Winter
18 Dream Caused by the Flight of a Bee Around a Pomegranate One Second before Waking Up
19 The Falling: Four Who Have Intentionally Plunged Over Niagara Falls with the Hope of Surviving
22 Invitation
23 Inside the Cloud Forest Dome
25 Love in the Time of Swine Flu
26 Self-Portrait as C-Section Scar
28 Andromache Begs Hector to Reconsider
29 When I’m Away from You, I Feel like the Second-Place Winner in a Bee-Wearing Contest
30 In the Museum of Glass Flowers
31 Dangerous
34 While Riding an Elephant, I Think of Unicorns
35 Self-Portrait as an Egg-Tempera Illuminated Manuscript from 1352
36 Letter
