57 degrees? Wow, was I over-dressed. Shorts + tights + shirt + jacket. Ran with Scott through Austin, ending at the coffee place downtown (as usual). No snow on the ground, hardly any puddles on the sidewalk. Returned to Minneapolis in the afternoon: a mucky mess! Lots of snow and puddles. Still, spring is coming.
What a morning. After talking with one parent about anxiety, and another about the gamma ray that obliterated their small brain tumor, I only read a few pages today of Dart. Here’s some of my favorite lines:
woodman working on your own knocking the long shadows down and all day the river’s eyes peep and pry among the trees
when the lithe water turns and its tongue flatters the ferns do you speak this kind of sound: whirlpool whisking round?
woodman working on the crags alone among increasing twigs notice this, next time you pause to drink a flask and file the saws
4.25 miles minnehaha falls and back 35 degrees 30% puddle-covered
Another wonderful, spring-like day, if you consider 35 degrees and white ground everywhere spring-like, which I do. When the sun is this warm, the sky this blue, the birds this chatty, how can you not think of spring? Everywhere, wet: drips, drops, wide puddles stretched across the trail soaking my socks.
10 Things I Noticed
that same bird call that I’ve been hearing and wondering about happened again, right before I reached the river. I heard it, then hoped it would be followed by some drumming. It was! I’m calling it; this sound is a pileated woodpecker
a distant goose, or geese?
cawing crows
cardinals, doing at least 3 or 4 of their 16 (is it 16?) songs
black-capped chickadees
my shadow: off to the side, then behind, then finally in front of me
the shadow of the old-fashioned lamp posts on the trail. So big, they almost looked ,\like giant potholes to me
the river slowly opening. Still white, but darkening and thinning
a kid yelling at the playground. At first, I thought they were a siren — so high-pitched and insistent!
a mixing of sounds: an airplane, a bobcat, a crow, a kid, all crying out
As I left for my run, I remembered something I didn’t want to forget. I’m pleased that I still remember what it was after my run. Scott and I watched the first episode of After Party last night. Very good. Anyway, this episode focused on Aniq. For much of the episode he looked ridiculous: someone/s had drawn cat whiskers and ears on his face, along with the word “nerd” in big letters. It’s very obvious and a crucial element in understanding who he is as a character. Because of my vision problems — my lack of cone cells, limited central vision — I did not see any of this on his face until someone, the detective, finally referenced it. Up to that point, about 40 minutes, it was all invisible to me. I could see his face (well, roughly, I guess) and mostly follow what was going on, but I had no idea anyone had drawn on him. He looked “normal” to me. I wanted to remember this as an example of how my vision works, or doesn’t work, how much I miss that I’m not aware of. It doesn’t seem like that big of a deal, but you miss out on a lot of what’s happening and how it’s being communicated when you can’t see certain things and don’t even realize you’re not seeing them (and no one else realizes you’re not seeing them either; they just think you’re not paying attention or being stupid, or that you don’t care).
Here are two poems featuring birds that I encountered today. Both wonderful, both about much more than birds.
but I believe the soul is neither air nor water, not
this winged thing nor the cattle who moan
to make themselves known. Instead, the horses
standing almost fifteen hands high— like regret they come
most the time when called. Hungry, the greys eat
from your palm, tender-toothed— their surprising
plum-dark tongues flashing quick & rough as a match—
striking your hand, your arm, startled into flame.
In her discussion of the poem for The Slowdown Show, Ada Limón discusses the soul:
The Portuguese writer José Saramago wrote: “Inside us there is something that has no name, that something is what we are.” This seems clear enough. The soul is the part of you that you cannot name. One of the reasons I love the obsession that writers have with the soul is that their interest is not confined to what happens to the soul after you die. Rather, writers seem to be interested in what the soul is doing right now. Can the soul have likes or dislikes, coffee or tea, can one soul connect to another in what is called a soul mate? Is our soul only alive in relation to others, in community with nature, with something larger?
And here’s the other poem. It’s about cardinals. I heard, but never saw, many cardinals this morning on my run.
In February’s stillness, under fresh snow, two bright red cardinals leaping inside a honeysuckle bush. All day I’ve thought that would make for a good image in a poem. Washing the dishes, I thought of cardinals. Folding the laundry, cardinals. Bright red cardinals while I drank hot cocoa. But the poem would want something else. Something unfortunate to balance it, to make it honest. A recognition of death maybe. Or hunger. Poems are hungry things. It can’t just be dessert, says the adult in me. It can’t just be joy. But the schools are closed and despite the cold, the children are sledding. The sound of boots tamping snow are the hinges of many doors being opened. The small flames of cardinals and their good talk in the honeysuckle.
Wow, do I love this line: “The sound of boots tamping snow are the hinges/of many doors being opened.”
One more thing. After my run was done, and I was home, I went outside on my back deck and sat in the sun. Then I recorded this moment of sound. I’m calling it, Spring coming, drip by drip. As I listen back to it, I’m disappointed that trucks are so much louder than the drips.
5.5 miles bottom of franklin and back 21 degree / feels like 10
At first, I was planning to bike and run in the basement this morning, but I decided outside was better. And it was. The paths were slick in spots, but I was fine. Yesterday when I went running at around this time, late morning, I was hungry. I thought I’d be fine, but halfway through the run, I felt very tired. Again today, I was hungry, but I ate a cookie before I left and it made all the difference. (The cookie was a snickerdoodle from a batch I baked yesterday for Valentine’s Day.) I had energy for the whole run.
More cardinals today, no black-capped chickadees. The sun was out, then not, streaks of blue sky in the cracks of the clouds. I could see my shadow. She was not sharp, but soft, a little more than the idea of her there, a little less than her solid presence. The gorge was still white, and so was the river, except for some cracks in the ice, especially near the bridges — lake and franklin. On the way down to the flats, I cross under the I-94 bridge. Someone painted graffitied letters in lime green a few months ago and now, in the dreary dregs of winter, right above the dark gray water, they look sad and tired.
I don’t remembering noticing any critters, although I do recall hearing some rustling in the brush across the road as I entered the flats. I looked, but couldn’t see anyone or anything. Smelled a strong wave of pot. Encountered several runners and walkers. Near the end of my run, I passed a runner stopped by the side of the trail, waiting while her dog pooped in the snow.
Anything else? I think I devoted a lot of energy to watching the trail, and making sure I was avoiding ice, especially the big, concrete-like chunks that blend into the white background. At least, for me — do they for people with normal vision? One of the bigger chunks could do some serious damage to my foot.
Almost forgot: As I was finishing up, running on the sidewalks, trying to avoid the sheets of ice stretching across parts of the path, I thought about how I can usually see the ice. It’s because my peripheral vision is fine, and that’s where I spot the ice. And, to see ice — that is, “warning! ice ahead, watch out!” — doesn’t require a highly focused, precise image. Ice is often a blob or a discoloration on the path. I don’t need cone cells to see that. And, the way I, and probably a lot of other people, detect ice is by noticing how the light reflects off of it differently than the bare sidewalk. The sun on ice shimmers and sparkles more. Gray-ish light on ice is duller, flatter.
I think I finished my mannequins poem, I’m titling it, “Praise Improbable Things,” after lucille clifton’s poem, Praises, and its refrain, “Praise impossible things.” I’m barely halfway done with the month, so I have time to explore other meanings of WYSIWYG. I’m thinking of sticking with the mannequins, but exploring alt-text for them.
Here are some sources for alt-text that I want to use/refer back to:
4.6 miles minnehaha falls and back 0 degrees / feels like 0 0% snow-covered
It was cold today, but there was sun, and no wind, so I decided to run outside above the gorge. It felt colder than 0 to me, especially at the beginning. I started to get a slight headache from the cold air on the bridge of my nose. Once I warmed up, it went away. The other part of me that was cold for a few minutes: my feet.
layers (extra cold version)
one pair of socks
2 pairs of gloves, 1 black, 1 hot pink with white stripes + hand warmers
2 pairs black running tights
green base layer long-sleeved shirt
black 3/4 pull-over
pink jacket with hood
gray jacket
buff
black cap
sunglasses
Mostly, I was alone on the trail. When I did encounter people, it was almost always walkers alone, or in pairs, often in clusters — one walker, then a few seconds later, another walker, etc. At the falls, there were a few more people. At least 2 of them had big cameras. The falls were totally frozen, so was the creek up above. Almost everywhere, it was quiet and still.
This month, I’ve decided to read and write about a phrase that is also the theme for a call for poems from a journal that I’m submitting to: “what you see is what you get.” I’m hoping to approach this from as many angles as I can think of (and have time for). As I ran, I thought about in two ways:
what you see is what you get = whatever it is you can see (with your cone dystrophy), is all you get to work with for figuring out how to make sense of something. With the limited data I get from cone cells, that will involve some guessing, and relying on other senses + past experiences
what you see is what you get = what you see is not what you get, or what is real is not seen, but sensed in other ways, like air and wind. You can’t see wind or air, but you know it’s there. I think I was thinking about another example — maybe something to do with shadows? — but I’ve forgotten now.
10 Things I Noticed
School kids on the playground — in 0 degrees. Minnesota kids are hearty
The collar of my jacket rubbing against my hood
My breath, labored as I ran up a hill
Some sort of bird chirping, sounding like spring
A car’s wheel whooshing on the river road
A low, almost shrill and sharp, buzz just barely noticeable near the DQ
The soft shuffle of my feet striking the grit on the path
Someone on the walking side of the double-bridge holding a snowboard (I think?), then a thud, then that someone yelling something that sounded slightly distressed, but mostly not. What were they doing?
Returning 20 minutes later to the bridge, hearing some scraping or pounding in the ravine below. I don’t know what the noise was, but I imagined snowboard dude, along with some other snowboard dudes, was chipping ice, or climbing an ice column, or doing something else to ice to make it possible for them to get back up to the bridge. Will I ever know what was going on?
(not related to sound): a walker, or runner, I couldn’t tell, below me on the winchell trail. As I ran I wondered, was there even someone there, or was I imagining it?
one more: my shadow, behind me as I ran south. Sharp, well-defined
Another thing I did in relation to “what you see is what you get” was to do some research on Groundhog Day. I’ll add the notes to my February page; I’ve spent too much time in front of my computer right now. Some interesting stuff. I wanted to think about Groundhog Day because it was yesterday, and also it fits the theme. In the U.S. if it’s sunny and the groundhog sees his shadow on Feb 2, there will be 6 more weeks of winter. If it’s cloudy, and he doesn’t, spring is coming. As Scott pointed out, this tradition is not an instance of, “what you see is what you get,” but the opposite: “what you see, is what you don’t get.” note: If the groundhog sees his shadow, most people across the country are bummed. Ugh, 6 more weeks of winter! But, here in Minnesota, it’s cause for celebration. Only 6 more weeks of winter? Hooray!
bike: 15 minutes bike stand run: 2.2 miles treadmill
Watched the rest of the Dickinson episode about fame, which includes ED in a carriage with Death (Wiz Khalifa) and recently deceased, Edgar Allen Poe (Nick Kroll), who tells her how unsatisfying fame is, to which she utters: “Fame is a bee.” Nice. I wish they would have had the bee in the carriage too.
Fame is a bee. It has a song— It has a sting— Ah, too, it has a wing.
Ran to my new playlist. Again, didn’t think about much, or if I did think about anything, I don’t remember what it was. Returning to Dickinson, here’s a poem that includes doors (I mentioned a twitter thread a few days ago about doors in poetry) and ghosts!
One need not be a Chamber — to be Haunted — One need not be a House — The Brain has Corridors — surpassing Material Place —
Far safer, of a Midnight Meeting External Ghost Than its interior Confronting — That Cooler Host.
Far safer, through an Abbey gallop, The Stones a’chase — Than Unarmed, one’s a’self encounter — In lonesome Place —
Ourself behind ourself, concealed — Should startle most — Assassin hid in our Apartment Be Horror’s least.
The Body — borrows a Revolver — He bolts the Door — O’erlooking a superior spectre — Or More —
And, here’s another poem that includes both doors and ghosts that I’ve posted before:
Doors/ Carl Sandburg
An open door says, “Come in.” A shut door says, “Who are you?” Shadows and ghosts go through shut doors. If a door is shut and you want it shut, why open it? If a door is open and you want it open, why shut it? Doors forget but only doors know what it is doors forget.
bike: 20 minutes bike stand, basement run: 2.1 miles treadmill
Watched the Spartan Women’s World Championships in Abu Dhabi while I biked. I just discovered these races the other day, and I’m hooked. I don’t think I’d ever want to do one, but they’re fun to watch. This one took place in the desert, on the “world’s largest sand dune” (according to the announcer). They ran up soft sand so steep that they weren’t running, but crawling on their hands and knees. They climbed 8 ft walls, swung on monkey bars, lept over fire (right before the finish), carried heavy sandbags, and threw a spear at a target. The penalty for missing? 30 burpies. Some of the footage came from drones, and some of it came from some dude running behind or beside them, holding a small camera. Pretty sweet. Sometimes, I could see his shadow, and sometimes I could hear him breathing heavily. The women in these races are such badasses. They made it almost look easy.
Right before I started running, I listened to another haunt poem I wrote yesterday and today. I wanted to think about it while I ran. It worked; I had a few good ideas while on the treadmill, including one about pairing the poem I just wrote that begins
Before I was ghost
I was girl
with
Before I was girl
I was ghost
Poem one is about my badass, soccer-loving, fearless 8 year old self. Poem two will be about inheriting cone dystrophy from a past relative (the scramble in the DNA is the ghost).
Just discovered Brigit Pegeen Kelly this morning while reading through twitter. In a twitter thread about poets who create their own fables, the poet BPK was mentioned. I wondered who that was, and decided to look it up. Awesome. Here’s one of her poems:
Listen: there was a goat’s head hanging by ropes in a tree. All night it hung there and sang. And those who heard it Felt a hurt in their hearts and thought they were hearing The song of a night bird. They sat up in their beds, and then They lay back down again. In the night wind, the goat’s head Swayed back and forth, and from far off it shone faintly The way the moonlight shone on the train track miles away Beside which the goat’s headless body lay. Some boys Had hacked its head off. It was harder work than they had imagined. The goat cried like a man and struggled hard. But they Finished the job. They hung the bleeding head by the school And then ran off into the darkness that seems to hide everything. The head hung in the tree. The body lay by the tracks. The head called to the body. The body to the head. They missed each other. The missing grew large between them, Until it pulled the heart right out of the body, until The drawn heart flew toward the head, flew as a bird flies Back to its cage and the familiar perch from which it trills. Then the heart sang in the head, softly at first and then louder, Sang long and low until the morning light came up over The school and over the tree, and then the singing stopped…. The goat had belonged to a small girl. She named The goat Broken Thorn Sweet Blackberry, named it after The night’s bush of stars, because the goat’s silky hair Was dark as well water, because it had eyes like wild fruit. The girl lived near a high railroad track. At night She heard the trains passing, the sweet sound of the train’s horn Pouring softly over her bed, and each morning she woke To give the bleating goat his pail of warm milk. She sang Him songs about girls with ropes and cooks in boats. She brushed him with a stiff brush. She dreamed daily That he grew bigger, and he did. She thought her dreaming Made it so. But one night the girl didn’t hear the train’s horn, And the next morning she woke to an empty yard. The goat Was gone. Everything looked strange. It was as if a storm Had passed through while she slept, wind and stones, rain Stripping the branches of fruit. She knew that someone Had stolen the goat and that he had come to harm. She called To him. All morning and into the afternoon, she called And called. She walked and walked. In her chest a bad feeling Like the feeling of the stones gouging the soft undersides Of her bare feet. Then somebody found the goat’s body By the high tracks, the flies already filling their soft bottles At the goat’s torn neck. Then somebody found the head Hanging in a tree by the school. They hurried to take These things away so that the girl would not see them. They hurried to raise money to buy the girl another goat. They hurried to find the boys who had done this, to hear Them say it was a joke, a joke, it was nothing but a joke…. But listen: here is the point. The boys thought to have Their fun and be done with it. It was harder work than they Had imagined, this silly sacrifice, but they finished the job, Whistling as they washed their large hands in the dark. What they didn’t know was that the goat’s head was already Singing behind them in the tree. What they didn’t know Was that the goat’s head would go on singing, just for them, Long after the ropes were down, and that they would learn to listen, Pail after pail, stroke after patient stroke. They would Wake in the night thinking they heard the wind in the trees Or a night bird, but their hearts beating harder. There Would be a whistle, a hum, a high murmur, and, at last, a song, The low song a lost boy sings remembering his mother’s call. Not a cruel song, no, no, not cruel at all. This song Is sweet. It is sweet. The heart dies of this sweetness.
4.4 miles minnehaha falls and back 10 degrees / feels like 1 100% snow-covered
Cold, but not cold enough to freeze snot, sunny. Lots of birds singing: some chickadees, cardinals (I think?). The shadows were sharp, strong. I noticed them heading south: the shadows of a sign, then a fence post. Heading north, my shadow, beside me. The path was covered in snow, some parts of it tamped down, others loose and soft. Hard work. Happy to be outside, remembering how much I love the snow, how it connects me to my north woods roots.
10 Things I Noticed
at least a dozen people walking around the falls, some of them up above, a few below, 2 walking across the frozen creek
the river, heading south: such a bright white, glowing, shining, blinding
lots of people on the Winchell Trail — the trees were so bare that I could see them clearly: someone with a dog, later someone in a bright orange or red jacket
the Winchell Trail between 42nd and 44th was hidden by snow
a sharp, loud bark from a dog somewhere below me, way down by the river?
1 or 2 fat tires
a man talking on a bluetooth headset, just exiting the walking part of the double bridge
A guy walking a dog, carrying a kid in a backpack
the sky, bright blue, cloudless
the river, heading north: flat, dull, looking more like a white field
If you wake to a Rothko where the windows should be, to the dark wearing an indistinct belt between uneven sashes of glass, one oxblood shoe-polish, one midnight blue, the problem is refraction. The light–what little outruns the dark–has turned its ankle on the retina, bouncing false on a trampoline inside your eye.
Of course some afflictions also disappear in the dark, which swallows the man whole. At night a Reinhardt, in day the fellow’s fifty-year-old face is a Rembrandt, an oval of flesh glaucoma vignettes; blindness likes to lick the outskirts of likeness first.
Other losses begin in the middle of the field: redacting the kiss at a picture’s center– wrapping lovers’ heads in pillow slips; hovering doves at eye level anywhere hatted men stand. They could be anyone, the strangers Magritte painted almost as their mothers, maculas wasted, would see them.
But usually the picture dims proportionally, cataracts stirring gray into haystacks and ground and dust-ruffle sky. Maybe you will finally understand Monet, his play in thirty acts, his slow lowering of the lights in Giverny. At last there is nothing left to squint against.
3.5 miles trestle turnaround 16 degrees / feels like 4 snowing 100% snow-covered, at least an inch of loose snow
Snowing all day today. Usually, I wait until it stops and the trails have been plowed before I go out for a run, but not today. Decided to dig out my oldest yak trak and run through the snow. Loved it! A few parts weren’t fun: the wind blowing sharp shards of snow on my face, into my eyes, how slick and soft and difficult it was to run through. The rest of it was great. Quiet, calm, dreamy.
10 Things I Noticed
the regular, Santa Claus, bundled up in a bright orange jacket, with black running tights
a fat tire, their light cutting through the grayish white
almost everything looked soft, blanketed in snow; many things felt hard, sharp pellets of icy snow stinging my face
a car disappearing into the falling snow, near the trestle
a runner in glowing yellow
geese overhead, honking
impatient chickadees, their fee bee calls overlapping
the river: a lot of white, with streaks of dark, open water
4 people emerging from the forest below, crossing the river road
running on the road, at the end, mesmerized by the endless, blank white beneath me, feeling like I was running in place, or running through nothing, or not moving, just suspended in white
Time for another Chang/Merwin combo. I love this chance to reflect on Victoria Chang’s short poems, and be introduced to more of W.S. Merwin’s work. Today’s pairing starts with Chang’s “Daylight.” I couldn’t find a poem by Merwin with that exact title, so I settled for “The Wings of Daylight.” Is it the poem Chang is referencing? Not sure.
Daylight/ Victoria Chang
One by one, days died, even they weren’t protected. They have no symptoms but keep dying. They want to fix melancholy, to keep coming back to no answers, to take the depositions of orchards.
Brightness appears showing us everything it reveals the splendors it calls everything but shows it to each of us alone and only once and only to look at not to touch or hold in our shadows what we see is never what we touch what we take turns out to be something else what we see that one time departs untouched while other shadows gather around us the world’s shadows mingle with our own we had forgotten them but they know us they remember us as we always were they were at home here before the first came everything will leave us except the shadows but the shadows carry the whole story at first daybreak they open their long wings
5.6 miles franklin loop 17 degrees / feels like 0 50% snow-covered
Warm air, warm sun. Another good run. Headed north and decided, at the last minute, to do the Franklin loop. Heard some geese, their honks congregating under the lake street bridge. Maybe some crows too? I know I heard another bird, but I can’t remember now. A black-capped chickadee? Definitely no woodpeckers. Running over the franklin bridge, I studied the river: all white, mostly flat, the edges a silvery shimmer. Later, nearing the trestle, I saw a few bits of black: open water. Encountered some other runners, walkers, at least one fat tire. As I reached the lake street bridge, I came up with a line for a swimming poem that I’m revisiting. I stopped on the bridge to record it into my phone.
Anything else? Most of what happened, what I thought about, got left somewhere out on the trail.
This morning, just as I was leaving for my run, the mail came, bringing the chapbook by Victoria Chang I ordered last week. I think they only made 200+ of them. It’s a small square book, bound with thin red twine. Very cool. I’d like to try making something like this. Titled, Another Lost Year, it is made up of short poems, all with W.S. Merwin titles. So many great ones. Here’s one I especially like. It happens to fall in the very middle of the book, where the red twine is exposed and tied in a knot.
Left Open / Victoria Chang
We can’t see beyond the crest of the wooden gate. We are carriers of grass yet to be grown. We aren’t made of cells, but of fields.
I like this idea of being a carrier of grass yet to be grown. My first thought was of grass on graves — Whitman’s “uncut hair of graves” or Dickinson’s “The color of the grave is green”. Then I thought of Gwendolyn Brooks’ “To the Young Who Want to Die”:
Graves grow no green that you can use. Remember, green’s your color. You are Spring.
I like the idea of being made of fields, not cells. Here’s the original Merwin poem:
The shutters are rusted open on the north kitchen window ivy has grown over the fastenings the casements are hooked open in the stone frame high above the river looking out across the tops of plum trees tangled on their steep slope branches furred with green moss gray lichens the plums falling through them and beyond them the ancient walnut trees standing each alone on its own shadow in the plowed red field full of amber September light after so long unattended dead boughs still hold places of old seasons high out of the leaves under which in the still day the first walnuts from this last summer are starting to fall beyond the bare limbs the river looks motionless like the far clouds that were not there before and will not be there again
bike: 15 minutes bike stand, basement run: 2.4 miles treadmill 2 degrees / feels like -11
For most of the day, the feels like temp was hovering around -20. I have decided that that is too cold for me. So, I stayed inside. Watched a race while I biked, listened to a playlist and part of the Aack Cast by Jamie Loftus while I ran. It’s about the comic strip Cathy and it’s really good.
Some Things I Noticed*
my shadow, flashing, off to my left side, as I ran
in addition to my shadow, some sort of silvery something flashing or streaking or appearing in my left peripheral
the loud whir of the treadmill when I stepped off it to change my playlist (maybe it’s because of my vision, but I cannot pick new music on spotify when I’m in motion). The whirr almost sounded like a plane revving its engine before take off
my fine hair, falling out of my ponytail, felt like a spider web
before I warmed up, it was very cold in the basement
the soft space between beats felt continuous
sometimes my foot strikes were quiet, sometimes they were loud
*It’s difficult to notice things in a boring, dark, unfinished basement, especially when I’m listening to music. Maybe I should try to use my treadmill time for remembering thoughts or ideas?
Found this poem yesterday. Paige Lewis is wonderful, especially how they find delight in small things, and do such strange things with words!
a seagull—wings swallowing wings—I learned that a miracle is anything that God forgot to forbid. So when you tell me that saints
are splintered into bone bits smaller than the freckles on your wrist and that each speck is sold to the rich, I know to marvel at this
and not the fact that these same saints are still wholly intact and fresh-faced in their Plexiglas tomb displays. We holy our own fragments
when we can—trepanation patients wear their skull spirals as amulets, mothers frame the dried foreskin of their firstborn, and I’ve seen you
swirl my name on your tongue like a thirst pebble. Still, I try to hold on to nothing for fear of being crushed by what can be taken because sometimes
not even our mouths belong to us. Listen, in the early 1920s, women were paid to paint radium onto watch dials so that men wouldn’t have to ask
the time in dark alleys. They were told it was safe, told to lick their brushes into sharp points. These women painted their nails, their faces, and judged
whose skin shined brightest. They coated their teeth so their boyfriends could see their bites with the lights turned down. The miracle here
is not that these women swallowed light. It’s that, when their skin dissolved and their jaws fell off, the Radium Corporation claimed they all died
from syphilis. It’s that you’re telling me about the dull slivers of dead saints, while these women are glowing beneath our feet.