Upper World

Rae Armantrout

 
If sadness
is akin to patience,
                  we're back!
Pattern recognition
was our first response
to loneliness.
Here and there were like
one place.
But we need to triangulate,
find someone to show.
     *
There's a jolt, quasi-electric,
when one of our myths
reverts to abstraction.
Now we all know
every name's Eurydice,
briefly returned
from blankness
and the way back
won't bear scrutiny.
High voices
over rapid-pulsing synthesizers
intone, "without you" --
which is soothing.
We prefer meta-significance:
the way the clouds exchange
white scraps
in glory.
No more wishes.
No more bungalows
behind car-washes
painted the color of
swimming pools
 
From Up to Speed by Rae Armantrout. Copyright © 2004 by Rae Armantrout. Reprinted by permission of Wesleyan University Press. All rights reserved.

Poems by This Author

Chirality by Rae Armantrout
If I didn't need
Custom by Rae Armantrout
We maintain a critical distance
Exact by Rae Armantrout
Quick, before you die
Scumble by Rae Armantrout
What if I were turned on by seemingly innocent words
Thing by Rae Armantrout
We love our cat
Two, Three by Rae Armantrout
Sad, fat boy in pirate hat
Unbidden by Rae Armantrout
The ghosts swarm
Yonder by Rae Armantrout
Anything cancels


Further Reading

Related Poems
The Patient
by Gillian Conoley