[specimen]

As I walked into the room, I told myself, don’t start throbbing now. The Thai-English

phrase book had nothing for that tissue doesn’t look healthy. Robins are not very good at

acting casual. My favorite kind of green beans are the ones that start out purple and turn

green only as you boil them. Trees are circular, so even if I say there’s something behind

that tree, I still haven’t pinpointed where I am.

[specimen]

Almost means before, but it can mean around, so it also means after. The time set aside

for the talk ended before I could get to Heidegger’s theory of temporal inauthenticity.

They wanted to give me a colon cancer kit, but I figured my body could foul up on its

own. Origins are recoverable: the faces squinting in the photographs fade until you, too,

can’t make anything out through the wash of light. She said, I don’t need to know what

I’m doing.

[specimen]

She said she’d been touched by my emotions and I wondered how am I going to show

this using the doll? He said the deer came out of nowhere, then he pointed to the spot.

Easy for you to say I’m an echo. I told him his repetition compulsion indicated

childhood trauma, and he said read the instructions on the shampoo for yourself.

[specimen]

February twigs shining in late afternoon sun made white marks in the air like scratches on

glass. For years, I thought it was creepy how the eyes of the mural followed my around,

but then I realized it was a window and I felt like everyone else. A map pretends it is

somewhere else and he still expects it to be trustworthy. Sometimes when I see the room

reflected in the TV screen, I wonder what’s going to happen next.

[specimen]

A tornado is like a speech balloon that has its langue down, but needs work on its parole.

Part of me feels I’m about to go to pieces. She was goofing around, not looking anything

like she normally looked. The guidelines encouraged us to make our works of art as

fireproof as possible. The most suspicious emotion: I’m suddenly happy and I don’t

know why.

Mark Cunningham has three books out: 80 Beetles from Otoliths, Body Language from Tarpaulin Sky, and 71 Leaves, an ebook from BlazeVox. Later this year, Lamination Colony will be bringing out a chapbook titled Georgic, with Eclogues for Interrogators.