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April 2020 Issue [Readings]

After I Turn Sixty-Nine

From Genghis Chan on Drums, which will be published next year by Omnidawn.

I don’t imagine that a chariot is hurrying near but that a sleek car is speeding up
I have started a list of the costumes I want to be buried in, beginning with horny centaur
I try to put aside obituaries but I am unable to do so for very long (maybe ten minutes)
I eat the same meal every night while reading recipes of dishes I have never tasted
I shudder nearly every time I read the phrase “Lifetime Guarantee or Your Money Back.”
I no longer find it necessary to stop and look at what is going on at a construction site
I decide I won’t tell people to stop sending me books even if I will never read them
I stop and watch ambulances trying to get past cars that don’t want to move aside
I begin thinking about different methods I might use to remove myself from the story
I know what my friend meant when he said his dog would take his place on the couch
I think about the cities I will never return to, including Cadaqués and Caracas
I wonder when I will no longer begin a sentence with the words “if” and “when”
I dream that my ashes will be scattered in a remote spot in Ireland that no one visits
I admit that shrinking into myself is not as unpleasant as I once thought


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