{"id":866,"date":"2021-08-25T22:42:24","date_gmt":"2021-08-26T05:42:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/test-inside.ewu.edu\/willowspringsmagazine\/?p=866"},"modified":"2025-02-07T12:44:41","modified_gmt":"2025-02-07T20:44:41","slug":"three-poems-by-david-kirby","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/test-inside.ewu.edu\/willowspringsmagazine\/three-poems-by-david-kirby\/","title":{"rendered":"Three Poems by David Kirby"},"content":{"rendered":"
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\"Willow<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Found in Willow Springs 88<\/em><\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Back to Author Profile<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n\n<\/div><\/div>\n\n

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Three Poems by David Kirby<\/h1>\n\n\n\n

The Return of Martin Guerre<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Ever see The Return of Martin Guerre? It\u2019s the best movie.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Actually, it\u2019s the worst movie, but I\u2019ll get to that in a minute.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It goes this way: Martin Guerre is married to Bertrande,<\/p>\n\n\n\n

but in 1548, he goes to fight in one of those seemingly<\/p>\n\n\n\n

interminable wars that the French were always fighting,<\/p>\n\n\n\n

and he doesn\u2019t return until eight years later. Boy,<\/p>\n\n\n\n

is Bertrande happy to see him! There\u2019s only one<\/p>\n\n\n\n

problem, which is that the new Martin Guerre doesn\u2019t<\/p>\n\n\n\n

exactly look like the old one. And when he starts to squabble<\/p>\n\n\n\n

with relatives over his inheritance, they say Hey, this guy\u2019s<\/p>\n\n\n\n

an impostor, and things don\u2019t get any better after that.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Life is kind of like cooking, isn\u2019t it? It\u2019s hard to get<\/p>\n\n\n\n

everything to come out right and at the same time.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

When I played high school football, there was this one team<\/p>\n\n\n\n

from a tiny little town in South Louisiana that beat us<\/p>\n\n\n\n

every time, beat everybody. That\u2019s because they had<\/p>\n\n\n\n

this running back named B. J. Bordelon who nobody<\/p>\n\n\n\n

could stop. They just had four plays: B. J. to the right,<\/p>\n\n\n\n

B. J. to the left, B. J. up the middle. Naomi Shihab<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Nye told me there\u2019s a Palestinian-Jewish circus,<\/p>\n\n\n\n

but they have a hard time practicing because it\u2019s not<\/p>\n\n\n\n

easy to get everyone on the same side of the wall<\/p>\n\n\n\n

at the same time. Thing is, you want the person<\/p>\n\n\n\n

on the trapeze who catches you to practice a lot.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Nobody knew what B. J. stood for, though somebody<\/p>\n\n\n\n

said it was for Boy Genius. Yesterday I went back and<\/p>\n\n\n\n

forth with a Facebook friend who told me she\u2019d read<\/p>\n\n\n\n

the latest hot novel by the latest hot novelist, and when<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I asked her how that had gone, she said, \u201cIt was all right\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

but that she \u201cdidn\u2019t love it,\u201d that \u201cit felt like it didn\u2019t<\/p>\n\n\n\n

know it was a novel.\u201d Didn\u2019t know it was a novel . . .<\/p>\n\n\n\n

ah, ha, ha! For god\u2019s sake, know what you are, whether<\/p>\n\n\n\n

you\u2019re a novel or a regular human being like yourself<\/p>\n\n\n\n

or me, although that\u2019s probably easier said than done.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Last week I told my students to imagine there\u2019s a button<\/p>\n\n\n\n

on each desk, and if you press yours, you\u2019ll go immediately<\/p>\n\n\n\n

to heaven and dwell there forever in a state of eternal bliss,<\/p>\n\n\n\n

whereas if you don\u2019t push the button, you\u2019ll leave<\/p>\n\n\n\n

as usual at the end of class and walk out into the life<\/p>\n\n\n\n

that awaits you, so make your choice and explain<\/p>\n\n\n\n

in 500 words or less, and of 36 students, 34 said<\/p>\n\n\n\n

they\u2019d stick around and take their chances. How optimistic<\/p>\n\n\n\n

they are! And how eager for at least a certain amount<\/p>\n\n\n\n

of the rough-and-tumble they see as necessary<\/p>\n\n\n\n

to attaining bliss, even though I had promised them<\/p>\n\n\n\n

bliss without all that. Part of bliss is having things<\/p>\n\n\n\n

turn out in ways you didn\u2019t expect, of course,<\/p>\n\n\n\n

as when Francis Bacon\u2019s portrait of Neville Chamberlain,<\/p>\n\n\n\n

which is crammed with evocations of Hitler\u2019s bunker<\/p>\n\n\n\n

and bloody cow carcasses and other horror-film<\/p>\n\n\n\n

imagery, began as a painting of a bird descending<\/p>\n\n\n\n

onto a field. If you know what you\u2019re doing, it\u2019s not art.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Screamin\u2019 Jay Hawkins was the original shock rocker,<\/p>\n\n\n\n

but he made one big mistake. Before there was Alice<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Cooper or Iggy Pop or Sid Vicious, there was Screamin\u2019 Jay,<\/p>\n\n\n\n

who emerged from a coffin onto a stage festooned<\/p>\n\n\n\n

with snakes, skulls, and fire pots to sing such songs as<\/p>\n\n\n\n

his hit, \u201cI Put a Spell on You.\u201d His shows were sensations,<\/p>\n\n\n\n

and tickets sold like free passes out of purgatory,<\/p>\n\n\n\n

but before long, he was trapped by the persona he had<\/p>\n\n\n\n

created. \u201cIf it were up to me, I wouldn\u2019t be Screamin\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Jay Hawkins,\u201d he said. \u201cI\u2019m sick of it, I hate it!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I wanna do goddamn opera! I wanna sing! I wanna do<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Figaro! I wanna do \u2018Ave Maria!\u2019 \u2018The Lord\u2019s Prayer!\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I wanna do real singing. I\u2019m sick of being a monster.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Yeah, but he was a great monster. Who knows<\/p>\n\n\n\n

how good he\u2019d have been as an opera singer?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThe only paradise is paradise lost,\u201d said Proust.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And Paul Val\u00e9ry said, \u201cA difficulty is a light.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

An insurmountable difficulty is a sun.\u201d Not that all<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Frenchmen are as smart as Val\u00e9ry and Proust, of course.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The painter Ingres liked to play his violin\u2014badly\u2014<\/p>\n\n\n\n

for visitors instead of showing them his pictures,<\/p>\n\n\n\n

from which we get the expression violon d\u2019Ingres,<\/p>\n\n\n\n

meaning \u201can activity other than that for which one<\/p>\n\n\n\n

is well-known.\u201d Come to think of it, I should have<\/p>\n\n\n\n

offered my students a third choice besides going<\/p>\n\n\n\n

to heaven instantly or staying here and enjoying<\/p>\n\n\n\n

a fully-lived life with all the ups and downs that would<\/p>\n\n\n\n

turn them into fully-dimensional human beings,<\/p>\n\n\n\n

and that third choice would be to go to heaven instantly<\/p>\n\n\n\n

and look down on the fully-lived life that they\u2019d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

already lived with all the ups and downs that not only<\/p>\n\n\n\n

turned them into fully-dimensional human beings<\/p>\n\n\n\n

but made them worthy of an eternity in heaven,<\/p>\n\n\n\n

which, come to think of it, full-dimensionality<\/p>\n\n\n\n

just might be the key to. But that would be a movie,<\/p>\n\n\n\n

wouldn\u2019t it? The Return of Martin Guerre ends with<\/p>\n\n\n\n

the real Martin Guerre showing up; he\u2019s ugly<\/p>\n\n\n\n

and is as mean a snake. Bertrande says well, I guess<\/p>\n\n\n\n

he\u2019s the real Martin Guerre, and the phony Martin<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Guerre is tried and hanged. When the judge asks<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Bertrande why she went along with the hoax,<\/p>\n\n\n\n

she says, one, she needed a husband in that society,<\/p>\n\n\n\n

and, two, she was treated well by phony Martin\u2014<\/p>\n\n\n\n

in the sack, specifically, where he was gentle<\/p>\n\n\n\n

and listened to her \u201cbefore, during, and after\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

(\u201cavant, pendant, et apr\u00e8s\u201d). Real Martin, besides<\/p>\n\n\n\n

being ugly, is angry and impetuous; he doesn\u2019t seem<\/p>\n\n\n\n

as though he\u2019s going to be a nice guy anywhere,<\/p>\n\n\n\n

especially in bed. As to phony Martin, all he wanted<\/p>\n\n\n\n

was to cuddle with Bertrande and . . . oh, that\u2019s right.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Maybe he shouldn\u2019t have gone after that inheritance<\/p>\n\n\n\n

after all. See what I mean about it being<\/p>\n\n\n\n

the best movie (because well-made) but also the worst<\/p>\n\n\n\n

(because who wants to see phony Martin spinning<\/p>\n\n\n\n

at the end of a rope)? The best-laid plans of mice<\/p>\n\n\n\n

and men and so forth and so on, mainly so on.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Another singer, not Screamin\u2019 Jay Hawkins this time<\/p>\n\n\n\n

but country star George Jones, said he\u2019d rather sing<\/p>\n\n\n\n

a sad song than eat. Want to watch a movie?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I know a good one. It\u2019s set in France. Look, popcorn.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Galileo<\/h2>\n\n\n\n\nhttps:\/\/test-inside.ewu.edu\/willowspringsmagazine\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/332\/2021\/08\/Galileo-for-Willow-Springs.wav<\/a><\/audio>\n\n\n\n

Did you know that Galileo was a Mason? Okay, he wasn\u2019t,<\/p>\n\n\n\n

but that didn\u2019t stop the Masons from digging up his body<\/p>\n\n\n\n

a century after his death, performing a secret ritual known<\/p>\n\n\n\n

only to members of that fraternity, and reburying it<\/p>\n\n\n\n

in the church of Santa Croce near the tombs of such<\/p>\n\n\n\n

humanists as Machiavelli, Michelangelo, and Rossini<\/p>\n\n\n\n

and in that way doing their Masonic best to put<\/p>\n\n\n\n

a sharp stick up the nose of the Vatican that hadn\u2019t<\/p>\n\n\n\n

exactly jiggled Galileo on its purple-clad knee and told him<\/p>\n\n\n\n

what a good boy he was when he started talking<\/p>\n\n\n\n

about heliocentrism. Italy\u2019s a meshuggah country anyway.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I mean, they all are, but Italy is, like, meshuggah-meshuggah,<\/p>\n\n\n\n

and I mean that in the best way. Case in point: when I was<\/p>\n\n\n\n

in Rome a number of years ago (and I\u2019m not inventing this,<\/p>\n\n\n\n

you can look it up), I went to a jazz club to hear a quintet<\/p>\n\n\n\n

headed by Romano Mussolini, son of, that\u2019s right,<\/p>\n\n\n\n

that Mussolini. See? I mean, if you were in Munich,<\/p>\n\n\n\n

you wouldn\u2019t expect to go to a concert by Buddy Hitler<\/p>\n\n\n\n

and His Sieg Heil Singers, would you? Only in Italy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Experts says that\u2019s because Italy was an ally of Germany<\/p>\n\n\n\n

during the war and then its foe, and individual allegiances<\/p>\n\n\n\n

led to clashes between Fascist and partisan forces that<\/p>\n\n\n\n

continue to resonate to this day. The Red Brigades<\/p>\n\n\n\n

of the anni di piombo or \u201cyears of lead\u201d romanticized<\/p>\n\n\n\n

the partisans and continued their struggle with shootings<\/p>\n\n\n\n

and bombings from the late sixties forward; their targets<\/p>\n\n\n\n

were mainly elected and appointed officials, many<\/p>\n\n\n\n

of whom had been Fascist leaders who made no attempt<\/p>\n\n\n\n

to hide their pasts. Countries such as South Africa<\/p>\n\n\n\n

and Northern Ireland had similar divisions, but they faced<\/p>\n\n\n\n

their problems, whereas working out what happened<\/p>\n\n\n\n

in Italy is like trying to write on water. When I saw him,<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Romano Mussolini was playing the piano and not badly, either.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And the other musicians were rocking out, slapping the hell<\/p>\n\n\n\n

out of that bass and pounding those drums. They weren\u2019t<\/p>\n\n\n\n

exactly cutting edge, though: they were banging out<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cSatin Doll,\u201d \u201cMisty,\u201d and \u201cMood Indigo\u201d instead of<\/p>\n\n\n\n

the newer stuff. It worked, though. Those old fascists<\/p>\n\n\n\n

in the audience were shouting and pounding their tables,<\/p>\n\n\n\n

spilling their drinks and scattering ashes everywhere.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I\u2019m presuming they were fascists. They looked fascist,<\/p>\n\n\n\n

if you know what I mean. Of course, I was there,<\/p>\n\n\n\n

and I\u2019m not fascist. Besides, there are worse things<\/p>\n\n\n\n

than fascists. Like Nazis: in 1943, the German authorities<\/p>\n\n\n\n

in Rome demanded that the Jewish community hand over<\/p>\n\n\n\n

50 kilograms of gold or face immediate deportation<\/p>\n\n\n\n

of 200 of their members. I wouldn\u2019t exactly call that<\/p>\n\n\n\n

neighborly, would you? You know who else was a Mason,<\/p>\n\n\n\n

but for real this time? Mozart, that\u2019s who. Now there\u2019s<\/p>\n\n\n\n

someone who lived a full life. As he lay dying, Mozart<\/p>\n\n\n\n

was visited by a man in gray who asked him to write<\/p>\n\n\n\n

a requiem with the condition that he seek not to discover<\/p>\n\n\n\n

who had commissioned it, so even though he was rehearsing<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Magic Flute and was 40 pages or so into La Clemenza<\/p>\n\n\n\n

di Tito, Mozart took the commission, being typically hard up<\/p>\n\n\n\n

for cash and also dying. The man in gray was one Leitgeb,<\/p>\n\n\n\n

the emissary of Count Walsegg-Stuppach, whose wife<\/p>\n\n\n\n

had died that same year and who wanted to honor her memory<\/p>\n\n\n\n

with a piece of music of which he would pretend to be<\/p>\n\n\n\n

the composer, thereby proving that Italians aren\u2019t the only ones<\/p>\n\n\n\n

interested in cover-ups, fakery, deception, illusion,<\/p>\n\n\n\n

and sleights of hand. Now imagine Count Walsegg-Stuppach<\/p>\n\n\n\n

saying to the man in gray, \u201cLeitgeb, or whatever your name is,<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I hear this Zugzwang or Flugzeug (or whatever his name is)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

is pretty good, so tell him to knock out a piece for me,<\/p>\n\n\n\n

and nothing too complicated, if you know what I mean.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Only Mozart couldn\u2019t not be complicated, could he?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

You can imagine how upset Count Walsegg-Stuppach was<\/p>\n\n\n\n

when the Requiem showed up just brimming with all sorts<\/p>\n\n\n\n

of technical achievement. When word got out in Rome<\/p>\n\n\n\n

that the Nazis were threatening the Jews with deportation<\/p>\n\n\n\n

unless they coughed up that ransom, Jew and gentile alike<\/p>\n\n\n\n

streamed into the city\u2019s synagogues to turn over jewelry,<\/p>\n\n\n\n

watches, and cigarette cases. Only the goyim didn\u2019t know<\/p>\n\n\n\n

what to do once they got inside: take off their hats?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Keep their heads covered the way the Jews did? No one<\/p>\n\n\n\n

took their names, either, so there\u2019s no way to thank them.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Look out, baby, the saints are coming through!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThat things are not so ill with you and me as they might<\/p>\n\n\n\n

have been,\u201d said George Eliot, \u201cis half owing to the number<\/p>\n\n\n\n

who lived faithfully a hidden life and rest in unvisited tombs.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The important thing is to be kind, and also, if you play<\/p>\n\n\n\n

a musical instrument, to play it to the very best of your ability<\/p>\n\n\n\n

every time. When I was in grad school, I lived in<\/p>\n\n\n\n

an apartment building that was slowly being converted<\/p>\n\n\n\n

from a residence for old folks to one for grad students like me.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

My next-door neighbor was working on his PhD<\/p>\n\n\n\n

in violin performance, meaning he practiced constantly.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Some of the old-timers who lived on our floor<\/p>\n\n\n\n

asked him to keep it down because they wanted to nap,<\/p>\n\n\n\n

talk to their grandkids in California, watch Jeopardy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Others left their doors slightly ajar so they could hear.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Immortal Beloved<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Let\u2019s talk about how we woo our darlings.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The first thing is, don\u2019t worry about your smell.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

You smell fine. You don\u2019t need those pricey colognes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Sooner or later, your darling\u2019s going to smell the real you,<\/p>\n\n\n\n

and then what are you going to do with that big bottle<\/p>\n\n\n\n

of Insolence or Nice Flowers in your medicine cabinet?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Have you been in an elevator recently and someone gets on<\/p>\n\n\n\n

who has doused him- or herself with most of a bottle<\/p>\n\n\n\n

of Perhaps or Unforgivable Woman? If you\u2019re going to be<\/p>\n\n\n\n

snorting and wiping your eyes anyway, better that person<\/p>\n\n\n\n

should have spilled Ken\u2019s Fat Free Sun-Dried Tomato<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Vinaigrette on their clothes or Kraft Velveeta Cheesy<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Jalape\u00f1o Ranch; at least that might have given you an appetite.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThe scent of these arm-pits aroma finer than prayer,\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

says Whitman, and who\u2019d know better? Perfumes, colognes,<\/p>\n\n\n\n

essences, attars, and scents are for the birds. Words are<\/p>\n\n\n\n

the thing. Sweet nothings, poetry . . . rhetorical firepower!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So many beloveds over the centuries, so many dear ones,<\/p>\n\n\n\n

ducklings, lambkins, chickabiddies, apples of one\u2019s eye.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And so many memorable letters to them! Thomas Jefferson<\/p>\n\n\n\n

was a statesman, diplomat, lawyer, architect, philosopher,<\/p>\n\n\n\n

and more-than-a-little-hypocritical father of American<\/p>\n\n\n\n

independence since he didn\u2019t extend that status to<\/p>\n\n\n\n

the 700,000 African-Americans under his jurisdiction,<\/p>\n\n\n\n

but at least he used his left hand to write a letter of twelve<\/p>\n\n\n\n

pages or just over four thousand words to one Maria Cosway,<\/p>\n\n\n\n

a married woman he had just met and fallen for and with<\/p>\n\n\n\n

whom he took a walk during the course of which he kersplatted<\/p>\n\n\n\n

while vaulting over a fountain, thus proving that within every<\/p>\n\n\n\n

future president lurks a lovesick schoolboy, and broke his wrist.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Only one problem. Okay, two, the first being that the letter<\/p>\n\n\n\n

consists almost entirely of a dialogue between Head and Heart,<\/p>\n\n\n\n

only the two voices sound so alike that you may say that Heart<\/p>\n\n\n\n

is just as stuffy as Head is if not stuffier, and if you said that,<\/p>\n\n\n\n

you\u2019d be entirely correct. The other thing wrong with Jefferson\u2019s<\/p>\n\n\n\n

letter is that it didn\u2019t work: Maria Cosway said fine, whatever,<\/p>\n\n\n\n

and stayed with her husband. What\u2019s wrong with these guys?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Beethoven did the same thing, only worse, because whereas<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Maria Cosway had only one child, the Antonie Brentano<\/p>\n\n\n\n

whom Beethoven called his Immortal Beloved had five.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Wait, I know. These guys were pitching woo to married moms<\/p>\n\n\n\n

for the same reason women marry death-row prisoners,<\/p>\n\n\n\n

which is that they\u2019re unavailable: you can be as romantic<\/p>\n\n\n\n

as you want to be and never have to put up with, on the one hand,<\/p>\n\n\n\n

the brats and the diapers and the bills and, on the other,<\/p>\n\n\n\n

the tattoos and the shivs and the threats to tell your husband<\/p>\n\n\n\n

if you don\u2019t top up their commissary account so they can treat<\/p>\n\n\n\n

the fellas in the yard to candy and smokes. Gentlemen,<\/p>\n\n\n\n

you have to write with your head, but in such a way that<\/p>\n\n\n\n

it sounds as though your heart is speaking, as Joyce did when<\/p>\n\n\n\n

he wrote to Nora Barnacle, calling her \u201cMy dark-blue,<\/p>\n\n\n\n

rain-drenched flower!\u201d but then offering to take her from behind<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201clike a hog riding a sow, glorying in the open shame<\/p>\n\n\n\n

of your upturned dress and white girlish drawers and in the confusion<\/p>\n\n\n\n

of your flushed cheeks and tangled hair.\u201d All right!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The scent of these armpits, the scent of these armpits!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Actually, the most beautiful love letter in the world is the one<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Virginia Woolf left for her husband on the morning<\/p>\n\n\n\n

of March 28, 1941 before filling her pockets with stones<\/p>\n\n\n\n

and stepping into a river. \u201cDearest,\u201d she wrote, \u201cI feel certain<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I am going mad again. I feel we can\u2019t go through another<\/p>\n\n\n\n

of those terrible times. And I shan\u2019t recover this time.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I owe all my happiness to you, she says, then \u201cif anybody<\/p>\n\n\n\n

could have saved me it would have been you\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

and \u201ceverything has gone from me but the certainty<\/p>\n\n\n\n

of your goodness\u201d and finally \u201cI don\u2019t think two people<\/p>\n\n\n\n

could have been happier than we have been.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

How\u2019d Virginia Woolf smell? Not very nice, probably.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Who did in those days? But if Leonard Woolf was smart,<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I bet he told her she smelled like roses and Parma violets,<\/p>\n\n\n\n

like vanilla cake, yeast, bread, like riso in bianco<\/p>\n\n\n\n

or rice stirred with Parmesan and lots of butter. I bet<\/p>\n\n\n\n

he told her she smelled like ripe peaches, the scent of which<\/p>\n\n\n\n

was said to have risen from the bosom of Joan of Aragon,<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Queen of Castile, whose skin perfumed her very clothes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And Leonard, what\u2019d he smell like? Pipe tobacco, probably.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Coal fires. Sorrow. O my beautiful wild flower of the hedges,<\/p>\n\n\n\n

he says to Virginia, O the Paradise perfume of your mouth.<\/p>\n\n<\/div><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"","protected":false},"author":20535,"featured_media":909,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"wpo365_audiences":[],"wpo365_private":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-866","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-featured-work"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/test-inside.ewu.edu\/willowspringsmagazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/866"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/test-inside.ewu.edu\/willowspringsmagazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/test-inside.ewu.edu\/willowspringsmagazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test-inside.ewu.edu\/willowspringsmagazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/20535"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test-inside.ewu.edu\/willowspringsmagazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=866"}],"version-history":[{"count":12,"href":"https:\/\/test-inside.ewu.edu\/willowspringsmagazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/866\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":38834,"href":"https:\/\/test-inside.ewu.edu\/willowspringsmagazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/866\/revisions\/38834"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test-inside.ewu.edu\/willowspringsmagazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/909"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/test-inside.ewu.edu\/willowspringsmagazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=866"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test-inside.ewu.edu\/willowspringsmagazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=866"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test-inside.ewu.edu\/willowspringsmagazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=866"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}