INDIA JUNE

1. Checking the Mailbox or: Dream Fallen Under the BedSalvia splendens, celosia plumosa, and amaranthus caudatus seeds and their envelopes, mod podge, india ink, alcohol ink, acrylic paint, gesso, pen, scotch tape, rubber cement, glue, block printing ink, and varnish on wood.+ Sassetta’s Madonna and Child with Angels (ca. 1445-50)
+ Sassetta’s The Last Supper (1423)
+ Giovanni di Paola’s St. Catherine’s Exchanging Her Heart With Christ (1460)
+ Edwin G Conklin’s (University of Pennsylvania) Karyokinesis and Cytokinesis in the Maturation, Fertilization and Cleavage of Crepidula and Other Gastropoda Cell Diagrams (1902)

2. Knife at Rest on the Kitchen TableFruit decorating knife, silica gel and its packets, bread tags, thumbtacks, dead bumblebee from the collection of the artist, candle wax, fortune cookie fortunes, dollhouse accoutrements and ceramic figurines, gingham fabric, Marukawa peach chewing gum wrapper, MIRRO Cooky Press instruction booklet (ca. 1940s), Trader Joe’s meyer lemon & cream yogurt lid, polaroid photo of trees in Massachusetts, mod podge, alcohol ink, acrylic ink, acrylic paint, liquid chalk, gesso, varnish, rubber cement, scotch tape, masking tape, super glue, and pen on wood.+ Jeanne Dunning’s Leaking (1994)
+ Nan Goldin’s Gina at Bruce’s Dinner Party (1991)
+ Edward Hopper’s Eleven A.M. (1926)

3. Receipt TapeGrocery store receipt, pen, acrylic paint, varnish, rubber cement, thumbtack, sticky tack, superglue, Home Depot Outdoor Grizzly Grass in Fern, and cardboard on paper.+ Furniture listings from Antique Wicker From the Heywood-Wakefield Catalog: A Schiffer Book for Collectors (1994)

4. The Attic (I Am Not Scared of Ghosts)Dollhouse candles and ceramic figurines, Strombecker Playthings Genuine Walnut Cabinet Radio, Arcor strawberry candy wrapper, vintage stamps, Airspeed inflatable packaging, AIRplus inflatable packaging, Macmillan Publishing Services invoice, carton contents shipping label, candle wax, dried baby’s breath flowers, gel pen, marker, superglue, rubber cement, mod podge, varnish, gesso, acrylic paint, embroidery thread, scotch tape, and curling ribbon on wood.+ X-Acto House of Miniatures No. 40015 Chippendale Sofa fabric, patterns, and instruction booklet (ca. 1980s)
+ Furniture listings from Antique Wicker From the Heywood-Wakefield Catalog: A Schiffer Book for Collectors (1994)
+ Wassily Kandinsky’s Sky Blue (ca. 1940)

5. Freezer JamPaper berry basket, vintage stamps, dollhouse accoutrements, bread bag tie, thumbtacks, milk bottle seals, Home Depot Outdoor Grizzly Grass in Fern, curling ribbon, embroidery thread, spray paint, varnish, acrylic paint, mod podge, oil pastel, and adhesive on wood.

6. General Care For Popcorn Ceilings and Wood-Glued FurnitureDried baby’s breath, metal washers from the childhood swingset of the artist, Babybel Cheese bag netting, keys, rubber bands, embroidery thread, Culture Hustle Black 1.0 pigment, acrylic paint, acrylic paint, gel pen, adhesive, and superglue on paper.+ Furniture listings from Antique Wicker From the Heywood-Wakefield Catalog: A Schiffer Book for Collectors (1994)
+ Illustrations from The Illustrated Treasury of Children’s Literature (ed. Margaret E. Martignoni) (1955)

7. The First Place You Look (A Needle in the Royal Dansk Tin)Verbatim blank CD, dollhouse teddy bear, dollhouse light wiring and plugs, other dollhouse accoutrements, glow-in-the-dark star, key, vintage and current postage stamps and post markings, dust bunny (dryer lint, silica gel, adhesive), silica gel packet, plastic sheet, parking ramp pass, clothespins, Micro-Pak LDPE Recyclable sticker (from shoebox), TrueValue receipt, chenille needle, bread tags, matches, acrylic paint, acetone, alcohol ink, printing ink, felt-tip and gel pen, marker, sealant, superglue, rubber cement, scotch tape, and mod podge on wood.+ “Stain Removal From Fabrics: home methods” Good Reading Rack Service pamphlet (1948)
+ Beatrix Potter illustration (from The Tale of Peter Rabbit)
+ Briarpatch I SPY memory game card

8. I Would Tell Your Fortune but It’s Getting LateBriarpatch I SPY memory game cards, Bicycle playing card deck, Avery Removable Color Coding Labels sheet, Macmillan Publishing Services invoice, fortune cookie fortune, acrylic paint, gel pen, varnish, rubber cement, and superglue.

Included textKnife at rest includes Wikihow article [How to Peel and Core Apples]: “Remove the core by pulling the apple core out.”As well as written text (original):
please take this orange
i have peeled for you
i peeled it for you i have
thought of you i will
think of you
alwaysThe receipt on Receipt Tape reads:
MILK
BREAD
I LOVE THE GROCERY STORE
OH NO I AM OVERWHELMED IN THE CEREAL AISLE AGAINThe original poem on The First Place You Look is as follows:
i’ve told you i’m full of poly-fil
i looked down (glass eyes hanging from threads i should replace) to realise i was missing stuffing (though i’m not sure where or when i lost it, and i imagine synthetic clouds trailing behind the car like just-married tin cans, swept up by the wind and into the trenches of dirt next to the road) and i reached my arm far into the back of the hall closet where the sewing basket might be
blindly feeling for the plastic bag between the shadows
to try to fix myself again
have you ever thought about roosevelt pardoning that black bear when his men had tied it up for the shooting
but he was on a bear hunt in the first place
and the bear wasn’t armed for a fair fight in the first place?
it was men tying up bears in the first place, and it always isOn I Would Tell Your Fortune but It’s Getting Late, card backs read:1. Be cautious — no — Take the risk. Sorry. Fuzzy signal.2. More than eight in 10 Americans — 87 percent — have magnets on their refrigerator, according to a recent CBS news poll, including more than half who keep five or more magnets on their fridge.3. Count your dustbunnies — they’re lonely!4. Contact your doctor or healthcare provider if you begin to experience headaches, nausea, or the permeating scent of superglue.5. Can I tell you a secret? Sometimes she calls me Cassandra. I don’t think I’m a prophet, I only see but they never believe me. So what’s the difference?6. Your pocket has a hole in it. Figure out what you’ve lost.7. The basement, the junk drawer, basement, cabinet, closet, junk drawer, you’ve shut it on your fingers, screws to something. You don’t remember what it is anymore.8. You may need to clean out your wallet. You may need to clean out your glove compartment. You may need to forget about your junk drawer.9. I have dropped you behind the couch.
A. Feel around blindly
B. Get out the vacuum
C. Forget you’re there
?10. Wait, I need to take a picture of this home before I leave it.

SOMETIMES I THINK THAT
IF MY LOVE COULD JUST BE STRONG
ENOUGH, IT WOULD BITE DOWN
SO HARD YOU COULD
NEVER SHAKE ME OFF.
OR AT LEAST IF YOU
DID, GLORY BE. THE
DEEP INSET OF MY
JAW WOULD HAVE
STUCK ITSELF IN
YOU FOREVER.

I always imagine the writing of our wills will be done together even though it's going to make us both SUPER DEPRESSED.STEP 1: PREPARE TOOLS (melon baller, chest cavity)*
STEP 2: make room for you in me
STEP 3: keep safe (you, in marble form)
*seam ripper may be required for repeat vulnerable people

I don't know that I glow in my room
But I shed my skin
- cells and myself -
And I breathe all my air
Until I can't anymore

Loving too hard at nothing. What do I do now?
I want to eat the whole word, to feel my
skin come to room temperature. I want to
hold your flesh in mine. They'll have to pry
the thought, cold and dead, from my everloving hands.

pink stained with gooseberries
someday you'll wake up and I'll have
the good butter (yellow)
that melts in the sun
waiting at the tableit's hard to be us
but it's harder to be other people
it's hard to be us.
but you've seen other people.it's hard to be me, but I'd rather
be comfortable than clean.
I'm not too good at scrubbing away
the things that make me
bear my teeth.
I'm hoping someday to sleep them off,
spit them out.
I don't want them for you.

Wishing on eyelashes pulled by the fistful
A bushel, a peck
The fields have grown thistles,
Parting the grasses with shaking hands
Black crescent threads sticking to the dry-skin spiral of fingertips
Have I always been made of such sharp corners,
Of needles in rows
Of spears and plumes of spines?
I keep waking up with venus petals caked under my nails
Longer than they used to be
And I'm not sure the stain is mine, only that
I taste acid when I wake at the idea
(I wanted so much more.)
What I do know
Is that if I were to love, I'd only love because, well, isn't it horrible?
I've only wanted to be in your head, too
Embedded thoroughly into your palm
The arch of your foot
The teary seam of your eyes
The lining of your sleep.

the moon was
so big when you were born
and i loved you both