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October 2009 Barbed wire August Water Sand One-Shot sign-painter’s High tide enamel Symphonic Bon Ami™ Secret Apples Fog Pears Row boat Cherries Rotten pier Blackberries Sand spit Salt Steep cliff Clay Flood stream Horse hair International jeeps Grass Rust Semen Oxidation Leather Slow explosion Tree fort Syringe Underground fort Tetanus shot Wood blinds Cousin Teal carpet Doctor Small wood stove Dentist Pink insulation Yacht Pine trees Grateful Dead Wood glue “The eye is the jewel of Knotty plywood the body” Cob webs Robo-fry Styrofoam blocks Camp fire Sixteen-penny galvanized Scotch broom nails Yellow Evergreens Allergies Tad poles Inspector Gidget and Smoky, Civic Center ponies Orca statue Small back-hoe Chicken wire Grave Aqua-colored typewriter BMX course Road construction Hay jumping Country fair One car per hour Hay ride Rocks Roller skating Eagles Halloween Crow’s nest Graveyard Seagull Loosened tombstone Alka-Seltzer Rope swing Low tide Seaweed Two-stroke engine Jellyfish Hand Bob Ross Third-degree burn Edward Hopper Bowl of ice Sawhorse Kite Dog hair PrivateCirculation.com
Black tire Rope buried in beach Scuba lessons Air compressor Balls of mercury on concrete Garbage cans Skidding on rocks Maggots Drunken bees Flight path Orca stuck in low tide Shark blood on bow Tackle box Beach glass Crumbling cliff Exposed roots Homemade helicopter Jet Ski Broken arm Shredded plastic bag Captain’s house (abandoned) Bulkhead Oyster farm Tidelands Mill Church School house Business Weekly newspaper Felix Frozen pipes Gangs of dogs No fences Boysenberries Barometer Compass Olympia Cascadia Mosquito Fleet Poppies Bunk-beds Costco Baseball cards Logger breakfast One-ton anchor Weed-eater Lawn mower
Edger Hose Copy machine Vandalized Mormon church Meth lab The sticks School bus Riptide Red tide Spider crab Sea otter Mussels Message in a bottle Encyclopedia Stolen garage-sale signs Gravel-encrusted wound Fern Gully Mount Saint Helens Machete Atrium Mushroom grows in carpet Windows need re-caulking Fighter pilot Bad vision Black Hills Case Inlet Treasure Island State park Key Center Red Dog’s Key Bank Huckleberry Inn Cherokee Explorer Tractor Intercourse AKA hay fever Rope ladder Black roof shingles Pellet gun Blue tarp Urine Geo Metro
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October 2009
Seiche: Rain-x vs Aquapel
A screenshot of a map showing the intermediary stages of construction of a pedestrian-crossing in Providence, R.I. A new 50foot-wide, landscaped pedestrian overpass (above) will replace the old, narrow footbridge. The satellite image below shows the site after the old footbridge was demolished, but before new construction was under way.
I
’m standing under a corner
— which is the same kind that
you, then hangs up. Another
of construction scaffolding;
gives you a headache driving
turn. You wonder who it was,
in one hand I’m holding three
home at the end of a Tuesday,
what they said, but don’t ask.
white plastic bags of groceries,
or simply always happens to be
Your literary pretensions,
and in the other my deployed
rambling when the headache sets
which also serve as a defense
black umbrella. As I wait for
in — drones on. By this time of
against dangerous thoughts,
the light to turn — watching
night, however, your mind has
lead you to muse that each
the purling water wash down
passed a certain threshold,
raindrop (likely created when a
44th Street and flow left in a
after forgetting about the
larger drop, flattened by its
wide arc onto Fourth Avenue — I
headache. All the words morph
descent, caught a pocket of
see you drive past.
together and, after ditching
air, billowed open like a para-
On your dashboard, the yellow,
their referents, start to sound
chute, and burst into an array
red, and white lights, some
musical, like during the mind’s
of droplets) that’s racing
with black illustrations, oth-
twilight before sleep, when
toward this windshield is one
ers with blurry green digits,
talking sounds like Coltrane
of Borges’s Alephs, reflecting
make up the foreground. Illumi-
and vice versa. Not much vis-
its world in a tiny distorted
nated by the two Xenon head-
ibility tonight.
orb. The wipers are new, and
lamps, a conical tunnel of rain
The phone rings. She picks it
they’re doing a good job, you
pelts the windshield. It’s
up. You turn the radio off and
think. Yes, it’s satisfying to
raining, but you’re dry in the
steer the car around a bend.
watch them work so diligently,
car — obvious yet comfortable
She had said something, which
so efficiently.
facts. The voice on the radio
you missed, followed by a thank
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