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Propel yourself with gas and jointed limbs.

Outside the fishbowl: a mottled planet.

No natural markers in this landschaft.

Fake is what they want.

Rehearse the oral language in the indigenous manner.

HILLARY. HILLBILLY. HILARITY.



All these you will need:

An aluminum-foil helmet with holes and mudguards.

Telephone cords to bind loved ones.

A box of oxygen to be platooned.



Carafes of laughing gas (optional).

Cloven cleats for walking outside.

Pencils are extra-cost-items (not allowed).

Stash hardbacks into soft cavity.

Linh Dinh is the author of a collection of stories, Fake House (Seven Stories Press, 2000) and a chapbook of poems, Drunkard Boxing (Singing Horse Press, 1998). A poem of his is anthologized in Best American Poetry 2000. Dinh is the editor of the anthology Night, Again: Contemporary Fiction from Vietnam (Seven Stories Press, 1996).