<\/p>\n

Self Conscious<\/strong><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

gaze \/ regard<\/em><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

The incident is trivial (it is always trivial) but it will attract to it whatever language I possess. (Barthes)<\/em><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

She has a seat to herself until the man<\/p>\n

gets on and mutters to his kid sit by that<\/em><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n

ugly girl over there.<\/em> Stung, she has half<\/p>\n

a mind to remind him she has beauty<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

for lunch, or to whisper to the child\u2014<\/p>\n

ugly<\/em> is beauty\u2019s aquifer, mineral silt<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

that feeds the creek bed before it<\/p>\n

breaches the marsh. Not antithesis<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

of beauty but its ore, a thing known<\/p>\n

not by example\u2014wart, bent-kneed<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

cartwheel, gap after extraction\u2014<\/p>\n

but by need\u2014prosthesis, proctor,<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

pore\u2014a need akin to boredom,<\/p>\n

to chagrin, the cringe in exposure,<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

the sediment in the cup. She is<\/p>\n

uneasy before a camera or a corpse.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

She hears the grunted \u201cage\u201d in<\/p>\n

bandage, salvage, suffrage, spoil.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

* * *<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Crush<\/strong><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

crush \/ engouement<\/em><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Theatrical phase of infatuation in which the girl hoards signs of recognition and reciprocation, curating artifacts of desire and accruing their significances to herself.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Instead of a coffin, carve a six-foot pocket knife<\/p>\n

with a church key & corkscrew, place<\/p>\n

plastic ivy in a vat & paint a lavender man<\/p>\n

with one sunken shoulder.\u00a0Illuminate<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

toaster coils & paper lanterns, mount trout<\/p>\n

on a yield sign, upholster a chaise<\/p>\n

in faux mink, & dress the mannequin in two<\/p>\n

boas & the stole of a beaded deacon.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Realign windowpanes horizontally & hang<\/p>\n

several bicycles from the ceiling next<\/p>\n

to raptors & hinged globes made of license<\/p>\n

plates & glass. I should have warned you<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

I have the coldest hands. Set up some tollbooths<\/p>\n

& salt licks, frame an old advertisement<\/p>\n

for a bitter remedy that is no longer sold & never<\/p>\n

worked in the first place, seat a mermaid<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

in a canoe & place a gourd in her prophetic hand.<\/p>\n

We work ourselves up to the watery blues,<\/p>\n

to the passage in Mauberley, & there\u2019s nothing<\/p>\n

to do but get off at the ninth floor.\u00a0Look,<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

our game goes like this:\u00a0you adore & I appreciate,<\/p>\n

say thank you even, as if I don\u2019t return<\/p>\n

the emotion & then some, crushing in both senses.<\/p>\n

Keep that in mind & go easy on me.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Give dragonfruit to the guy at the cash bar,<\/p>\n

summon the tech crew to run puck lights<\/p>\n

on a wire, envision a headless nude in tangled roots.<\/p>\n

Devise a volcano that spews euphemisms<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

for war. If all else fails, park a Buick between<\/p>\n

vessels & spread a pelt on the steel roof,<\/p>\n

pick out the constellation you\u2019d imagine if we<\/p>\n

were looking up, languid with disdain<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

for the rest of a world we know will never live<\/p>\n

up to the wistful ersatz aftermath of this.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

* * *<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Ceiling<\/strong><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

dream \/ r\u00eaver<\/em><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Sleep restores the girl to the domicile of fear.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

I wake up smothering, pinned<\/p>\n

in timbers, this time the beams of<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

the Hingham, Mass. meetinghouse<\/p>\n

where they would have burned me<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

at the stake. Sometimes it\u2019s girders<\/p>\n

of low-end retail, or factory rafters,<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

or the pocked dropped-ceiling above<\/p>\n

the berth where I lay naked, hot,<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

a boy\u2019s flank blocking both fan<\/p>\n

and light, saying restless prayers<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

to Our Lady of Byways. No use<\/p>\n

trying to sleep again before blue<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

seeps through the pitch. And you?<\/p>\n

In your otherwhere, are you trying<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

to fall back to sleep, to fall up<\/p>\n

through a roof that\u2019s a net, the one<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

you told me about last summer\u2014<\/p>\n

sieve for sky, celestial hammock,<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

colander to catch the errors of<\/p>\n

the world? What errors\u2014trinket,<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

ladder, dove? What sign, what<\/p>\n

web, what sky, what world?<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

* * *<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Enamor<\/strong><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

fall \/ tomber<\/em><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

The lover\u2019s discourse, from dis-cursus\u2014originally the action of running. <\/em>(Barthes)<\/em><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

She tries to lose herself<\/p>\n

on a muddy path where<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

skunk cabbages erupt<\/p>\n

from winter mire, birches<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

fill in with green so new<\/p>\n

it can\u2019t be natural. A few<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

bars into the third song\u2014<\/p>\n

that guileless triangle if<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

that\u2019s what she\u2019s hearing\u2014<\/p>\n

she\u2019s startled by sweetness,<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

by some moody business<\/p>\n

with a flute from the get-go,<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

the vaguely Spanish guitar<\/p>\n

sidling up like the cringe<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

of existing at 17 in skin<\/p>\n

too raw to expose to sun.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

That\u2019s desire\u2014a whistle,<\/p>\n

strum, chime (an interior <\/em><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n

ocean\u2019s rocking, in long <\/em><\/p>\n

capricious fugues and <\/em><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n

chorales<\/em>)\u2014mistywet, slip-<\/p>\n

stream, cherrywine\u2014<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

these are the words she\u2019d<\/p>\n

pick up to try to skip them<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

across the lake. She runs\u2014<\/p>\n

miles later she hears the song<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

again as she\u2019s coming down<\/p>\n

the west side of Eagle Hill<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

under ashen granite, and<\/p>\n

that\u2019s when she loses track<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

of her body and it feels like flying.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

* * *<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Unfinished Fugue<\/strong><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

you \/ tu<\/em><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

I myself cannot (as an enamored subject) construct my love story to the end: I am its poet (its bard) only for the beginning; the end, like my own death, belongs to others.<\/em><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

If I were you were waiting there<\/p>\n

outside the door in a long coat holding<\/p>\n

your breath, holding my breath,<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

if I were you were ruefully amused,<\/p>\n

gathering trinkets in the night air,<\/p>\n

moons & Mauberley, Burne-Jones\u2019<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

boudoir & Delphinus & crocuses, I<\/p>\n

would breathe the night air, observe<\/p>\n

the row of stars above the roof, mis-<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

take moonlight for snowcover, snow<\/p>\n

for salt, for a dune, a bolt of gauze<\/p>\n

drawn across the moon, would know<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

you were (wish you were) asleep in<\/p>\n

a white bed, or is it a white field<\/p>\n

in Cezanne, shaded sum of colors,<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

as if the eye were I were you were<\/p>\n

standing on an iron bridge, were<\/p>\n

waiting at the door wearing cold<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

on your coat on your breath on my<\/p>\n

hands if I were\u2014there, this, a blaze <\/em><\/p>\n

of summer straw, in winter\u2019s nick<\/em>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

  Self Conscious   gaze \/ regard   The incident is trivial (it is always trivial) but it will attract to it whatever language I possess. (Barthes)     She has a seat to herself until the man gets on and mutters to his kid sit by that \u00a0 ugly girl over there. Stung, she […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3554","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-poetry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/ducts.sundresspublications.com\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3554","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/ducts.sundresspublications.com\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/ducts.sundresspublications.com\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/ducts.sundresspublications.com\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/ducts.sundresspublications.com\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3554"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"http:\/\/ducts.sundresspublications.com\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3554\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3631,"href":"http:\/\/ducts.sundresspublications.com\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3554\/revisions\/3631"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/ducts.sundresspublications.com\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3554"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/ducts.sundresspublications.com\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3554"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/ducts.sundresspublications.com\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3554"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}