Six Poems
by Rae Armantrout
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THE GIFT You confuse the image of a fungus with the image of a dick in my poem (understandably) and three days later a strange toadstool (white shaft, black cap, five inches tall) appears between the flagstones in our path We note the invisible web between fence posts in which dry leaves are gently rocked. SUSTAINED 1 To come to in the middle of a vibrato— an “is”— that some soprano’s struggling to sustain. 2 To be awake is to discriminate among birdcalls, fruits, seeds, “to work one’s way,” as they say, “through.” 3 Just now breaking into awareness, falling forward, hurtling inland in all innocence BORDER PERFECTION 1 The days are shorter, but the light seems to stretch out, to hark from a long way off. Horizons snap into focus, while shadows are distended, smudged. It’s happening again; we take discrepancies for openings. 2 The sign that the guy behind me in the “border protection” line is demented is his impatience, the way he asks again and again what we’re waiting for THE VESICLE 1 To our amazement, when fed on fatty acid, the vesicle did not simply grow, it extended itself into a filament. Now the king’s youngest daughter said, “I wish I had something like that”— and the whole vesicle transformed into a slender tube which was quite delicate. 2 Monks mimed one another’s squiggles carefully by candlelight as if they thought creation trailed something, as if they knew creation looked like this from what is always the outside. EXACT Quick, before you die, describe the exact shade of this hotel carpet. What is the meaning of the irregular, yellow spheres, some hollow, gathered in patches on this bedspread? If you love me, worship the objects I have caused to represent me in my absence. * Over and over tiers of houses spill pleasantly down that hillside. It might be possible to count occurrences. WITH It’s well that things should stir inconsequentially around me like this patina of shadow, flicker, whisper, so that I can be still. * I write things down to show others later or to show myself that I am not alone with my experience. * “With” is the word that comes to mind, but it’s not the right word here.
CONJUNCTIONS:54, Spring 2010
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