Table of Contents
1 Ex Machina 3
Divine and Mechanical Bodies 4
The Case of the Double Jinx 6
Understudy 10
Possible and Impossible Sentences 11
Little, Red 12
Girl-Terrarium 14
Lucy in Chrysalis 15
Big Valley's Last Surviving Beauty Queen 17
Cinderella Story 19
Before the Catalog of Boats 20
Why the McKean County Lifeguards Left Town 22
Paper Anniversary 23
A Theory of Disaster 24
2 My Girlhood Apothecary 27
Genealogy 28
Family Portrait with Rosary and Steak Knife 29
Genealogy 31
Portrait of my Father as a Young Man with a Bludgeon 32
In Language School My Father Learns to Pass for Dutch 33
My Father Flying Home From War, 1975 34
Genealogy 35
Games 36
Lent 37
3 Our Wilderness Period 41
Before and After, Botched 48
Still Life with Mannequin and Leg of Lamb 49
Fire Plan 50
Frontier Thesis 52
Rabbit Starvation 53
Inventing the Body 54
4 Bad Magic 61
We Won't Make it to the Talkies 62
Vigil 63
Friendly Letter 64
Horses Dream of Horses 65
All Good Girls Deserve 67
Fervent Missive 69
Revisionist Love Story 70
Birds Keep Nothing in Their Bones 72
Unsent Defense 74
Cutting Nature at the Joint 75
Come Fetch 76
The Secret Nancy 78