WEBVTT

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"Hard Child."

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So I had two lists
of names for a girl.

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So what?

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The president's allowed to
have two speeches in case

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the hostage comes home in a bag.

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The geese in the metro park
don't want for breadcrumbs,

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despite the signs proclaiming,
"The land provides them

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all they need."

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I was a hard child,
by which I mean

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I was callous from the start.

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Even now, where I define myself
after a grand disease or blasts

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among the pasty
scattering of survivors,

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there isn't one
human tradition I

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would choose to carry forward,
not marking feast days,

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not assembling roadside
shrines, not marrying up, not

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researching the colloquialism
"Staten Island divorce," not

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representing paste pearls
as the real things,

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not recounting how the
advent of photography

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altered painting and soured
us on the acrylic portrait

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and thrust us
toward the abstract,

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sending us seeking
to capture in oil

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that which film would
never be wasted on.

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Umbrella stands.

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Unlovely grates.

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Assorted drains.

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Body casts.

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I typically hate
discussing the past

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and treasure the
option, rarer and rarer,

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to turn from it, as when
K.'s twins were born,

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and one of them nearly died.

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I don't even remember which.

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That's how much they got better.

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