David Ray Vance's poems and stories have appeared in such publications as Chicago Review, Denver Quarterly, Notre Dame Review, Borderlands, Sniper Logic, The Texas Observer, and McSweeney’s, and also in the anthology: Is This Forever or What?—Poems and Paintings from Texas (Greenwillow/Harper Collins). His poem “Radium Jaw” was published as a chapbook by Transparent Tiger Press (2001). He is presently a doctoral candidate in Creative Writing at The University of Houston and is Co-Editor of American Letters and Commentary. Vitreous will be available from Del Sol Press in Fall, 2006.

From Vitreous:

Further Notes on Legerdemain

The pupil as muscle must be exercised.

We are looking always precisely where we are looking.

Misdirection means purposeful direction.

The lady sawn in half is perceived in halves.

What we know our vantage predicts.

Every operation conceals subsystems and workings.

Belief affirms sight, though there are limits as with everything.

All understanding is dilation.

Difference between perceived and seen.

Moss, a thin sheen, imbedded in wooden fence.

Pebbles at surface of concrete walk, so much mosaic.

Distant roofline, chimney, ventilation pipe, two full windows.

Bedside clock, three hands, iridescent.

Difference between seen and known.

Your love a photon. Your hatred its red shift.

Emotion like theories of rain.

As I write, floaters swim in and out of the periphery.

First green buds of hyacinth in spring.

Look! They are everywhere.

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