Exercise: Talking to Strangers
Listen to the audio file, then repeat after each speaker until you feel ready to move on to the next exercise.
Hello!...
Venus
My daughter-never-born is throwing snow.
She’s dropping crystals
from clouds of sulfuric acid.
They glisten like knives, swirl
in the solar winds. Each flake hovers
over the ground before...
Operetta
After Hayao Miyazaki’s Howl’s Moving Castle
You were never just one place. No,
you were always opening the door
into a different country, always
stepping into a new...
The Heron
the coffee maker’s clean light blinks
there’s mold in the ceiling
i’m waiting for the phone to ring
someone calls or someone doesn’t call
a package comes...
An Elegy for the Girl Before
After Luca Giordano’s Perseus Turning Phineus and His Followers to Stone
miserable girlflesh now turned the color of your worries,...
Lament Beginning With A Line From Khaled Mattawa
I have fallen into the embrace of my own rugged innocencelistener who suffers, in my innocence I’ve...
Sleep: A Report
Oh, elusive lullaby of the body,
porthole into the brain’s watery depths,
last night you had me fretting
over deadlines again—
deadlines, what a term
to carry...
