The man at the next table praises me for making more noise
over the foccacia than most women make over sex

Film Color, 1950

City Limits

Rome

Toi Derricotte
from THE TELLY CYCLE
Joy is an act of resistance
For Telly the fish
Telly’s favorite artist was Alice Neel. 
When he first came to my house, 
I propped up her bright yellow shade with open 
window and a vase of flowers (post card size) 
behind his first fish bowl. I thought 
it might give him something 
to look at, like the center 
of a house you keep coming 
back to, a hearth, a root 
for your eye. It was a 
wondering in me that came up with that 
thought, a kind of empathy 
across my air and through his 
water, maybe the first 
word that I propped up between us 
in case he could 
hear. Telly would stare at the painting 
for hours, hanging there with his glassy 
eyes wide 
open. At night he wanted the 
bottom, as if it were a warm 
bed, he’d lay there 
sort of dreaming, his eyes 
gray and dim and 
thoughtless. For months he came back 
to her, the way a critic or lover 
can build a whole 
life on the long study of one 
great work. I don’t know why 
he stopped, maybe it was when 
he first noticed 
me, the face above my hand 
feeding for, sometimes, when I’d set the food 
on top, he’d still watch me, eye 
to eye, as if saying, food 
isn’t enough. Once, when I 
bent, he jumped up out of the water and kissed 
my lips. What is a fish’s kiss like? 
You’d think it would be 
cold, slimy, but it was 
quick, nippy, hard. Maybe it was just 
what I expected. For all 
our fears of 
touch, it takes so long 
to learn how to take in. 
When he stopped coming 
to the top, I guess I did all the wrong 
things—the fish medicine 
that smelled, measured 
carefully for his ounce of weight, 
for his gills worked 
so hard and he lay still, 
tipped over slightly 
like a dead boat. 
How do you stop the hurt 
of having to breathe?
After, I took him to the middle of the 
yellow bridge right near the 
Andy Warhol museum— 
I had put a paper towel 
in a painted egg and laid him in it— 
and, at the top, 
I opened the casket and emptied him out 
into the water.

Today She Bought the Hideous Tie They Will Bury Me In

To Stop a Dinner Guest

From “The Telly Cycle”

Limit result set to products with a specific global product attribute

Limit result set to products with a specific global product attribute term ID (required an assigned attribute).

Limit result set to products with selected global attribute queries.

Limit result set to products assigned a specific category name.

Limit result set to products assigned to a specific group of category IDs.

Limit result set to products not assigned to a specific group of category IDs.

Limit result set to products assigned to a group of specific categories by name.

Limit result set to products not assigned to a group of specific categories by name.

Limit result set to products based on a maximum price.

Limit result set to products based on a minimum price.

What paramater to use to order the objects by.

Use ID to return only children. Use 0 to return only top-level items.

Specify objects whose parent is in an array.

Specify objects whose parent is not in an array.

Limit result set to products with a specific average rating. Must be between 1 and 5

Limit result set to products based on a keyword search.

Limit result set to products assigned a specific shipping class ID.

Limit result set to products with specific SKU(s). Use commas to separate.

Limit result set to products with specific slugs.

Limit result set to products assigned a specific status.

Limit result set to products in stock or out of stock.

Limit result types to types supported by WooGraphQL.

Limit result set to products assigned a specific tag ID.

Limit result set to products assigned to a specific group of tag IDs.

Limit result set to products not assigned to a specific group of tag IDs.

Limit result set to products assigned to a specific group of tags by name.

Limit result set to products not assigned to a specific group of tags by name.

Limit result set with complex set of taxonomy filters.

Limit result set to products assigned a specific type.

Limit result set to products assigned to a group of specific types.

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Limit result set to products with a specific visibility level.

where

The parent of the node. The parent object can be of various types

parent

The globally unique identifier of the product_variation object.

databaseId

name

date

The local modified time for a post. If a post was recently updated the modified field will change to match the corresponding time.

modified

format

description

Product variation SKU (Stock-keeping unit)

price

regularPrice

salePrice

dateOnSaleFrom

dateOnSaleTo

onSale

status

purchasable

virtual

downloadable

downloads

downloadLimit

downloadExpiry

taxStatus

taxClass

if/how product variation stock is managed

manageStock

stockQuantity

stockStatus

backorders

backordersAllowed

weight

length

width

height

menuOrder

purchaseNote

catalogVisibility

type

image

keysIn

multiple

metaData

Connection between the ProductVariation type and the ProductVariation type

Connection between the Product type and the Product type

preview

Cursor used along with the "first" argument to reference where in the dataset to get data

Cursor used along with the "last" argument to reference where in the dataset to get data

The number of items to return after the referenced "after" cursor

The number of items to return before the referenced "before" cursor

Unique cache key to be produced when this query is stored in an object cache. Default is 'core'.

Term ID to retrieve child terms of. If multiple taxonomies are passed, $child_of is ignored. Default 0.

True to limit results to terms that have no children. This parameter has no effect on non-hierarchical taxonomies. Default false.

Retrieve terms where the description is LIKE the input value. Default empty.

Array of term ids to exclude. If $include is non-empty, $exclude is ignored. Default empty array.

Array of term ids to exclude along with all of their descendant terms. If $include is non-empty, $exclude_tree is ignored. Default empty array.

Whether to hide terms not assigned to any posts. Accepts true or false. Default false

Whether to include terms that have non-empty descendants (even if $hide_empty is set to true). Default true.

Array of term ids to include. Default empty array.

Array of names to return term(s) for. Default empty.

Retrieve terms where the name is LIKE the input value. Default empty.

Array of object IDs. Results will be limited to terms associated with these objects.

Direction the connection should be ordered in

Field(s) to order terms by. Defaults to 'name'.

Whether to pad the quantity of a term's children in the quantity of each term's "count" object variable. Default false.

Parent term ID to retrieve direct-child terms of. Default empty.

Search criteria to match terms. Will be SQL-formatted with wildcards before and after. Default empty.

Array of slugs to return term(s) for. Default empty.

Array of term taxonomy IDs, to match when querying terms.

Whether to prime meta caches for matched terms. Default true.

Connection between the ProductVariation type and the TermNode type

after

before

first

last

Connection between the Product type and the TermNode type

terms

Connection between the ProductVariation type and the visibleProduct type

Connection between the Product type and the visibleProduct type

visibleProducts

Connection between the ProductVariation type and the shippingClass type

Connection between the Product type and the shippingClass type

Shopping Cart
items

December 7, 2010RomeToi Derricotte

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December 7, 2010RomeToi Derricotte

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From “The Telly Cycle” by Toi Derricotte