by Rae Armantrout
Shooting pleasures
Ok’d by
My being seen
For
Or as
If.
*
Not just light
at the end of the tunnel,
but hearts, bows, rainbows—
all the stickers
teachers award if pleased.
*
Pigeons bathe in technicolor
fluid “of a morning.”
*
If I was banging
my head with a shoe,
I was just exaggerating—
like raising my voice
or the ante.
Curlicues
on iron gratings:
Can it be
a flourish is a grimace,
but a grimace isn’t a flourish?
*
On the inscribed surface
of sleep.
Almost constant
bird soundings.
“Aloha, Fruity Pebbles!”
Music, useful
for abstracting emphasis.
Sweet nothing
to do with me.
From:
Veil: New and Selected Poems
Copyright ©:
2001, Wesleyan University Press
Last updated December 02, 2022