Discount Enterprise

learn of the male doctor performing hysterectomies, the uterus collector, my first instinct is to cut my arm off and send it in a letter. Another one, another one. This isn’t the first

America to amass

a mass sterilization. Many Americas have. The dogwood trees watch. This is not an account. This does not contain capital. This does not require the secret password. This has not been rendered. It is a privilege to be shocked.

GEORGIA DENNISON 9

Magellanic Cloud as Agent

The international collective of flies gather in the ether to make electronic music. Tickets are free but a donation of lung tissue is highly encouraged. Ascension is an eternal struggle but there’s always window shopping.

In one frame, wood fired bagels are stacked to form a tree— sustenance as ornament, nature, gargled anthropocene. Permission to praise the Country-pop star for footing the death bill. In the tangerine smoke of a new thorny day the riff is contagious,

the beat is contagious, the chorus contagion. Go ahead, sneak back into the Satanic Temple after hours to spiritually copulate with the goat-headed Baphomet as the bronze children watch. Volatile sun-saturated hydrocarbons

have the whole family digging into their various cavities. Three jawed leeches insist on exercising their right to free speech. How can you compete? Your sad, singular brain is no match against the sycophant’s 32. You only lose blood. You don't know loss.

If you must touch a stranger, do it without hesitation. Unmake the bed. Encourage the dog to eat. Brush their hair. Admire the cactus. Croon over mushroom porcelains, the framed watercolors. And then never speak to them again.

10 CAROLINA QUARTERLY