Rae Armantrout

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It could have started like this.My mother took me to fabric shops when I was a kid.I would wander through the tall bolts dazed, readingfortunes in the colours.

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Whitepapier-mâchéof the mock-orange floweron its many stems.

Lavender, as an afterthought, necrotic –carried interest.

Ochrelike sunset in LA,like dehydration.

The popular mauve-greywhich blendsindifference with...

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Dears,

the backwards-facing S,a decoration in the iron rail,was here when I came,with its extra curlicuesat each end,and a miniatureversion of itselflike a foetusaffixed to its middle.

I’m telling you more, perhaps,than you need to know.

The sun on...

Nothing to see here.

Pine cones litterthe gutters.

Whose turn is itto blow on the mirror,mama?

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Each pushes forwardin her wild eagernessto take partin a ritual.

‘Is this that thingabout fireflies?’

Maybe.

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We use similes to showthings are connected –

and they are,just not in the ways we say.

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A hole in fresh dirtsurrounded by orange conesinto whicha crow peers,hops...

Were you surprised to learnthat you could swapan ‘i’ for an eye,and ‘a’ for an apple?

That’s the lure.

Later, you maywant to pray.

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You may be leftto think your wayfrom moment to moment

without being toldwhat a moment is,

if it’s something solid.

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The mad hear languagespeak itselfand are humble before it.

They receive instruction.

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The child in her...

The way orchid splits the difference

with hot pink, say,

in the hanging plastic crystal –

how an increased level of saturation

can come across as reticence

or even as retraction.

There, where it changes tack –

the as in the ‘come across as’ –

put your tongue on that.

Sign in car window:

It’s not about us,...