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Leonard as Anatomist, Repeatedly

Rosmarie Waldrop

To   raise   the   ribs to dilate the chest to expand   the   lung   to indraw the
air to enter the mouth to enter the lung.

He plays on a tendon, decentered, opening the lungs of his name.
Deluge. Unmoved by muscle, by act of will or without. By   raising
hopes in a calm and elegant direction.

In the evening, fleshy excrescence dilates a point on the   lower lip
where it flowers in an unmistakable “no” displacing breath.

Fat extends the fin-de-siècle from dinner to dinner. Witness the joint.
Of the bone to which this dotted line is attached.

What   if   smiling expands the chest   westward? Or   property   is
threatened as an organ touches visibility, as there is no vacuum, as a
pair of bellows?

To thicken the space with reverberations rather than imprint   the
sinewy force of pigment. To spur a feminine ending.

Rings under his eyes, clairvoyant. Otherwise unlit.

To   raise   the   ribs to dilate the chest to expand   the   lung to indraw the
air to enter the mouth to enter the lung.

Contacts: Emily Wallis Hughes and Jason Zuzga at fence.fencebooks@gmail.com