Piper Wheeler

INTRODUCTION: NO GODS, NO DENTISTS

Sickness: A Translation from the Russian

seminars in the bedroom seminars in the bedroom - time is whitened / by stains - yoked, both fly - A cat comes in—eyesockets, skin - Аre the shakes / really cousin to light?

An Untitled Poem by Osip Mandelshtam

arches kept quiet - hurricane sang - green and brown / but always young - black wine - thrush-filled lindens

Three Poems

as though your book would sell a million - I've boswelled your johnson - Exile is not the most alone! - Fix me, hon. My skin's on wrong. - Square teeth, bright as shovels. - the golden egg so shining and so wanted - all our dads, alone, enraged - I can't promise I won't burn down this town

So Damn Relatable

monument to unrelatability - a better reason than « it's Important Literature. » - the father’s strange subjectivity - a banal insistence on the humanity of humans - But once I read a preface - I SEE YOU! How do I respond? - It had none of the disinterest expected of the philologist - so much more imaginative labor

If I Told You I Went to Church Because I Hated Capitalism, Would You Believe Me?

maybe you shouldn’t - I was lonesome - three moments - perception was individuated and unrepeatable - a falsely sanctified corner of the trash-factory that was the world - exquisite, squeamish horror - needlepoint plaques - we mourn because we have to forgive the dead