Reading Into [4]

My client [ . . . ] would be the last man in the world to do anything ungentlemanly which injured modesty [skirts eyelet lifted the characteristic]

[C]ould object to or cast a stone at a girl who took the wrong turning [now investigate his eyes]

[likes the openness], had worked his own sweet will on her. [the past eyes looking not looking for it. Had my own fellow] Stately, plump

opulent curves inside

cough which so many have tried (unsuccessfully) to imitate—short, painstaking yet withal so characteristic of the man.

Give her beefsteaks, red, raw, bleeding!

Reading Into [5]

[The story was] they were alone and he stole an arm round her waist she went white to the very lips.

mercy of beauty,

[it was the grief too that brought out her whiteness]

And yet and yet!

more of her shapely limbs encased in finespun hose

[kittens kittensoft with rushes]

[I hear from] out upon the air the sound of voices and the pealing anthem of the organ.

whatdoyoucallthem dulcimers

Reading Into [6]

[I wish I had said] What do they think when they hear music? Way to catch rattlesnakes.

[Animalia chapter]

She looked [to me] fine. Her crocus dress she wore [feature that fine fabric, languishing, bird-singing, fleet-footed fox and torn hem lovemaking]

All those who are interested in the spread of human culture among the lower animals (and their name is legion) should make a point of not missing [listening, listening] [lost to me now]

And baby prattled after her:

—A jink a jink a jawbo.

Nature woman [trying, dissolving, petticoats, legs, language] half a look.

Philosophy. O rocks!

Reading Into [7]

They never come back. Fleshpots of Egypt.
 
[Here I imagine] on the quiet church whence there streamed forth at times upon the stillness the voice of prayer [if]

to hear the music like that and the perfume [if]

Touch lightly with two index fingers. [yes I will] Aristotle's experiment.

[back again delighted] of those incense they burned in the church like a kind of waft [taken but up her skirt the world]

the stained glass windows lighted up, the candles, the flowers [I looked, madam]

Then he slit open his letter, glancing down the page and over. [oh father again]

Reading Into [8]

[backward now to the favorite] He walked along the upwardcurving path.

LILIATA RUTILANTIUM. TURMA CIRCUMDET. [hastily] IUBILANTIUM TE VIRGINUM [in haste, wondering, the globed mess of it.  Blessed. Blessed or not blessed.].

 A sleek brown head, a seal's, far out on the water, round.

[Here’s what. Crosses in the background midst mist.]

[elsewheres:] Secret of all secrets. [blessed or not.] Seal of King David.

a dam to bear beastly should die by canon for so saith he [relenting] that holdeth the fisherman's seal, even that blessed Peter on which rock was holy church for all ages founded.

[see that.] [history backward evaporating.] Usurper.

[See that backward wishthinking of that seal]  

Amy Newman is the author of four collections, most recently fall and BirdGirl Handbook. Recent work appears in DIAGRAM, The Kenyon Review, Born Magazine, Hotel Amerika, and Denver Quarterly, and overseas in The London Guardian, Poesia, Acoma, and Itinera.