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Dave Eggers' The Wild Things is available for preorder, in regular hardcover and
limited-edition fur-covered.

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Domestic Sestina.

BY DOUG LANG

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 Everything I've ever imagined
 Is in this room
 And I don't believe Sherene is ever coming back
 And I do believe Amy is asleep
 And I don't know what Geef is doing
 As I talk on the telephone with Becky about stuff. Becky

 Talks about Travis and Clare and R.T. and writing and life and stuff. Becky
 And I talk about things I never imagined
 And things I never figured I'd be doing
 Everything is in this room
 Even Corinna who's in Moscow, asleep
 And I wonder if I'll ever make it back

 To Europe, back to Greece back to England, back
 To Wales. I wonder when Becky
 Will stop by to go over her poems. When the world is asleep
 Everything you ever imagined
 Distilled in the crucible of this room
 Where what you are dreaming is what you are doing

 And when you are doing
 This and how you are doing this is part of an incessant
 Pattern of energy concentrated in the silence of the room
 Yesterday Becky
 Came by with the children and I imagined
 Them 20 years from now. I'm asleep

 Again now. I've been alseep
 For years. I've been doing
 Stuff, but what I imagined
 Was different. You can't go back
 To Paros, Swansea, Harlech, London, Clydach, Waunarlwydd, really. Becky
 Is a genius. This room

 Is this room. This poem is this poem. This room
 Holds its shape, as Amy holds her shape, asleep, 
 And Geef and Sherene and Laura and Steve and Travis and Clare and Becky
 And R.T. and Pete and Tina and Corinna, whatever they're doing
 Has gotta be perfect. Back
 Up a minute. Where's Mo? Mo's dead. I never imagined

 This room this way before. What I'm doing
 Is what I am, asleep or awake. Out back
 There's Becky's old VW fender. Everything is imagined 

 

MORE SESTINAS

 

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