Partly. Rae Armantrout
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being
dissected
before an audience
of one,
none,
hundreds.
–
New twigs
do the splits
as I once did
Exchange
City of the future
in which each subway station’s stairs
lead to the ground floor
of a casino/
mall.
–
What counts
is the role
defined for each piece
by a system of rules saying
how it can move,
not the stuff
the piece is made of.
–
In the intersection,
a muscular, shirtless man
with small American
flags tied to each wrist—
so that he looks
like a wrestler—
pushes, no, shoves
then catches a stroller
piled high with plastic bags—
his stuff.
–
City of the future,
where a tramway to the top
of a peak
opens onto
a wax museum
in which
Michael Jackson
extends one gloved hand
Canary
1
Some folks got tortured
by folks
right afterwards
at an obscure
farmer’s market
where handcrafted soda
and artisanal mining
showed
we were on the right track.
2
Canaries
served as coq-au-vin.
3
We thought of events
as landmarks
first,
then as lifebuoys,
but in this too
we were mistaken.
Mistakes
1
The subject will claim
that she has been taken
to the wrong place.
That the room
she is brought back to
is not the room she left.
That these comings and goings
are happening
to someone else,
are gathering momentum
controlled by a secret
mechanism.
That she needs to tell
someone.
2
I walk out the door
to the stone bench
without meaning to
(without meaning it?),
each step
jarring my frame
as it would anyone’s
If
1
One cultivates
a garden of peculiars
“beyond reproach”
a plant like a half-
folded accordion,
a plant like a pale
rock, split in two
as if to ask,
“Where
is the original?”
2
(and a few
self-starters
with their sharp
rocket-fin leaves.)
3
You, husk-light,
forgetful,
with these
hollow bones,
this fly-away hair,
are you ready
for a new season?
If it’s just this:
nutmeg-flavored latte,
“pumpkin”
Surplus
I sat on the patio and wrote
Each afternoon I would sit on the patio where one waggish, unmoored
tendril nodded emphatically and the tree cast a web of nervous yet
resilient shadows, while the crickets had no idea what they were
insisting on—
but then what’s an idea?
I might visualize living sculpture (in which subjectivity, unable
to either detach itself from the body or direct it, had a public
experience of itself as surplus) without wishing to harm anyone.
In fact, I did.
Assembly
1
With large red lips,
a ceramic fish face
in a pink knit pouch
from which spinelike
sticks protrude
is suspended
above the work station.
2
Though ghosts don’t exist,
electrons on the mirror’s surface
absorb arriving photons and,
in their excitement,
emit others that
come back your way,
replicate a woman.
Outburst
1
What do you like best
about the present?
Reflection—
its