Partly - Rae Armantrout Wesleyan Poetry Series

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its non-

      locality:

      those eucalyptus leaves

      as points of light

      splashed

      over this windshield.

      2

      What if every moment

      is a best guess

      on a pop quiz?

      As if waking up,

      I stop explaining

      Tony Soprano’s outburst

      to his aggravated

      henchmen.

       Taking Place

      Once we liked the conspicuous

      but constrained,

      the push-up bra

      under the shirtwaist,

      a small bow

      at the throat,

      the appearance

      of a struggle

      toward the diminutive,

      the punctum.

      –

      The slender

      second hand

      jerking forward

      as if helpless,

      making its same sound.

      –

      We might stand

      in a thicket

      where a battle had

      taken place

      and be thrilled

      by the far-off roar

      of traffic

       Easily

      The models

      in the Gentlemen’s Club ad

      are posed

      with pink mouths slack,

      eyes narrowed

      to slits.

      Show me stunned resentment—

      the way

      the world absorbs

      an insult

      it won’t easily

      forget

       Partly

      In this ad

      for Newfoundland,

      an old woman

      steps onto the porch

      of the lone house

      on a remote cove

      and shakes a white sheet

      at a partly cloudy sky

      as if

      –

      Matched burgundy berries

      on adjacent stems,

      perfect ear bobs,

      with no one

      wearing them

       Parallel Worlds Theory

      1

      When a new bar called

      The Air-Conditioned Lounge

      opens and its sign

      is in old-time cursive

      this is ironic because

      the building

      is a concrete box

      and the sign

      looks like a gift card,

      no,

      this is ironic

      because its claim

      is true

      but does nothing

      to distinguish it.

      Either this sign

      is a reversal

      of the many

      novel yet dubious

      claims we endure

      or it expresses

      guarded nostalgia

      for a time

      when it was that easy

      to be cool.

      2

      Those branches

      are good

      because they remind me

      of others.

      The others

      are the same

      but small

       Word Problems

      If a fat man

      with one earlobe distended

      by a large ring

      and a thin man

      in a heavy neck chain

      sit together

      checking email

      The real is made up

      of things minus

      appearance

      near eucalyptus strands

      of green crescents

      and their shadows—flighty

      half-moons

      while the soul

      is made up

      of appearance

      minus things

       Action Potential

      Who sequesters

      negatively charged

      ions

      and waits.

      –

      Milton’s devils

      make me sad—

      the way

      Satan must cross

      chaos and dark night

      hour by hour

      to reach us,

      actually flying

      as if space were real,

      the way he stops

      and asks directions

      –

      Who runs

      along the tops

      of trains, leaping

      from car to car,

      ratcheted

      into the present

      in his topcoat

      if there is no

       Torn

      1

      If the whole ragged

      current

      were a creature,

      we could expect it

      to both anticipate

      and remember

      the splash it makes

      here

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