DUSK BOWL INTIMACIES 13



This is the year you can kill people. "That's why they ascended?" She was very 
polite about being murdered. One grandmother who never got it. What about 
when the fancy ones tell you you're going to die? And the story repeats for each: 
you live while you live, and you die while you die. Many times, originally. This is 
the gallows. I'm dead now. I died because I had to go certain places. So far, 
nobody died of the intricacies I died of. I did almost die once, but I can't really die, 
so I won't do it too much. And I should drop in on my dead. When do you expect 
me to die? I wasn't too thrilled to go, but I am now. Now I know where I stand, so 
I can die, and I'm thinking about how to buy the farm. First, I have to get myself a 
husband. He's hanging around until I die.
 
I
should wanna
conclude about then.
You
can't be
fancy. When I
die,
you can
take these pants.
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
DUSK BOWL INTIMACIES 19  
 
 
 
I once saw a handsome coven—lovers (by no means, of means)—up there in the 
bush, up in the sky. My glasses were alive then. The minute they wave, I think 
they shouldn't. They want a new religion, too. It isn't just money: it's their creed. 
We'll be getting a lot of candidates. My ex-boyfriend and his brother were 
deemed dead fish. They brought them back to life—a couple of days of light. Too 
late, too early, at sea. But if you ride on the right horse. . . .  Do you ever brush 
up on your flying? That's a good strategy to keep me alive a little longer.
 
Can't
die with
you too far
away.
Otherwise, I'll
die in hell.