Rae Armantrout

Form

  

Dear April, I appreciated the way the paragraphs were all about the same
length. I especially liked how your sentences appeared
to relate to one another. It was getting late,
they said. Solemn,
blunt flash of sun
off the window
of a Coors Light
truck.


On a fence across the street, wings of a wooden chicken
spun backward. Everyone
had reason to be proud.
I could handle symbols
without being manipulated by them.
Like a stone butch, you might say, but that’s
only connotation.


Meanwhile, in the photographs,
my expression was fading,
as if my darling,
Ambiguity,
were just another word
for death


What is the nature of the resting state
but gaseous longing/
regret?
In the original/
final form—


without objects