The Paris Review

Zoë Hitzig

SILENT AUCTION

Yes I helped decree it.In the white-walledroom of before withstrangers + veils.Don’t think I don’t thinkabout it daily. Up herefumigating my orielaccording to the NewerOrdering. I feel exactlyhow we got here. Wethought. Then we didas we thought.answered + when weanswered how we didas we thoughtwhat was wasno one could affordthe self-inducingcovenant. You’d besurprised what littlewe, the slighter figuresthere among the rest,could do in the room,strobing like sight linesin the jet bridge.Now we’ll never seethe men who appraise usthrough the one-waymirrors. Forevermore isbidding. Every timeI enter the hall, leavingmy liquid assets poolingin the center of myoriel, I feel less preparedfor the day—+ noI won’t know it’s coming—when they quit me hereentirely + poolingin the trespasses of mylast remaining asset.

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Credits
Cover: Courtesy of Nicolas Party and the Modern Institute /Toby Webster Ltd. Page 12, courtesy of Alice Notley; pages 32, 36, 39, 42, 45, 48, 52, 55, 56, courtesy of Jhumpa Lahiri; page 59, photograph by Marco Delogu, courtesy of Jhumpa Lahiri; pages

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