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May 18, 2005

Two Poems

Tracey Gaughran-Perez

By Numbers

Broadly then there are these, networks. Thought is actual, executed by several different parts while remaining actually indivisible. When he’s finally finished the last word on the matter what marks the memory is beyond dispute. What is authorized. Cause in effect we become ourselves later and later what held us commanded more or less than ourselves, always absorbing relevant sociopolitical and private marginalia. A sort of settlement built around the idea and its architecture, a cool, dry place. Comfortable means to end for each and everything allotted, with security and freedom in foresight. But even in precision and ease he cannot hear himself above the floor, ceiling and walls constantly referencing the spacious inclusiveness of design. When two hands meet halfway these bodies, in that gesture, rouse as if from sleep. One following another vertical and horizontal lines stretch out arms into the bright air and want for nothing.

How to Steal or Reinvent

She looks terrified barely visible under water; another flips her fingers in smoke and is kept light. Who wants her and why she is not noticed, these essential things that seem clumsy or awkward will be the better for it or we want to believe so. In momentary lapses her face was pretty if only, mirrors rearranged the unspoken. No, but I meant that in a good way. We eat rice and fish seriously, assume our positions change or are possible. What satisfaction for those chosen at the last, cowboy hats back in a slight twist at the knee, a wash of overwrought color. At this point she’d had just about enough and was looking for new forms, something stationary to pin hope on, but that was years ago. Those were wasted on someone else’s hypotheses and trust before in after; the haloed curtains now drawn against, a shadow folded neatly on carpet.

Posted by Rock Heals at May 18, 2005 12:06 AM